A very dear friend sent this to me.
"The Gift of the Gold Box"
The story goes that a man punished his 5-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of expensive gold wrapping paper. Money was tight, and he became even more upset when he found that the child had pasted the gold paper so as to decorate a box to give as a holiday present.
Nevertheless, the next morning the little girl brought the gift box to her father and said, "This is for you, Daddy."
The father was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction.
However, his anger flared again when he found the box was empty.
He spoke to her in a harsh manner, "Don't you know, young lady, when you give someone a present
there's supposed to be something inside the package?"
The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said,
"Oh, Daddy, it's not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was full."
The father was crushed. He fell on his knees and put his arm around his little girl, and he begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.
Only a short time later, he was dealt a further blow when an accident took the life of his precious little daughter.
It is told that the father kept that gold box by his bed for the
remaining years of his life. Whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems, he would open the box and take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.
In a very real sense, each of us, as human beings, have been given a golden box filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children, family, friends and God.
There is no more precious possession that anyone could hold.