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~A Gift of Love~
The story goes that some time ago, a man punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.
Nevertheless, the little 3-year-old girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said "This is for you, Daddy." He was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found the box was empty.
He yelled at her, "Don't you know that when you give someone a gift, there's supposed to be something inside it?" The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said,
"Oh, Daddy, You are funny. it is not empty. I blew kisses into the box. All for you, Daddy." The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness.
It is told that the man kept that gold box by his bed for years and whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the 3-year-old child who had put it there.
~True Love~
An old woman sat on the antique rattan rocking chair. Her eyeglasses were perched precariously on her nose as she concentrated on her sewing chores. A gentle breeze swept the wisp of whitish hair on her temples.
Beside her sat her teen-age granddaughter. She was like a fresh flower recently bloomed. Without warning she suddenly blurted out.
"Grandma, why is true love so difficult to find?"
The old woman with a kindly face stopped sewing and Said. "Ahhh -- Listen and I will tell you why,"
"Miilenium ago, when the world was young, true love existed everywhere. It was available for asking. Because of this, men and women took true love for granted, so God decided to keep true love.".
"God asked a pair of angels to keep true love. First, they buried true love in the ground. But man and woman easily dug it out. Next, the angels took true love to the highest mountains. But again man and woman easily climbed to the top. Then the angels submerged true love into the deepest sea. Man and woman swam to the bottom of the body of water and with ease retrieved true love."
"So true love is easy to find," commented the young girl. "For man and woman will dig, climb and, swim."
"Yes, but finally the angels kept true love in the hearts of man and woman. Since then people have had difficulty searching for true love. For they look everywhere except in the one place that should keep it - the heart."
~God's Plan~
When I was a little boy, my mother used to embroider a great deal. I would sit at her knee and look up from the floor and ask what she was doing. She informed me that she was embroidering.
I told her that it looked like a mess from where I was. As from the underside I watched her work within the boundaries of the little round hoop that she held in her hand, I complained to her that it sure looked messy from where I sat. She would smile at me, look down and gently say, "My son, you go about your playing for awhile, and when I am finished with my embroidering, I will put you on my knee and let you see it from my side."
I would wonder why she was using dark threads along with the bright ones and why they seemed so jumbled from my view. A few minutes would pass and then I would hear Mother's voice say, "Son, come sit on my knee." This I did only to be surprised and thrilled to see a beautiful flower or a sunset.
I could not believe it, because from underneath it looked so messy.
Then Mother would say to me, "My son, from underneath it did look messy and jumbled, but you did not realize that there was a pre-drawn plan on the top. It was a design. I was only following it. Now look at it from my side and you will see what I was doing."
Many times through the years I have looked up to God in heaven and said, " What is going on here? What are you doing?" He has answered, "I am embroidering your life." I responded, "But it looks like a mess to me down here.
It seems so jumbled. The threads seem so dark. Why can't they all be bright?"
"My child," a powerful voice from above said. "You go about your business of doing My business, and one day I will bring you to Heaven and put you on My knee and you will see the plan from My side."
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