Gifts of Love

A successful young attorney said, "The greatest gift I ever received was a gift I got one Christmas when my dad gave me a small box. Inside was a note saying, 'Son, this year I will give you 365 hours--an hour every day after dinner. It's yours. We'll talk about what you want to talk about, we'll go where you want to go, play what you want to play. It will be your hour!'"

"My dad not only kept his promise," the attorney went on, "but every year he renewed it. That was the greatest gift I ever received. I am the result of his time."

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Some time ago, a friend of mine scolded his three-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper.

He became exasperated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the tree. Money was tight, and the gold wrapping paper was expensive. Nevertheless, on Christmas morning the little girl brought the gift to her father and said, "This is for you, Daddy."

He was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his aggravation flared again when he found that the box was empty. "Don't you know that when you give someone a present, there's supposed to be something inside of it?" he lectured her.

The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, "Oh, Daddy, it's 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 her forgiveness. My friend told me that he kept that gold box by his bed for years. Whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there. - Anonymous

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I received the perfect gift last Christmas—the love of a little child.

On Christmas night, when it seemed that all of the gift-giving and festivities were over, I was tucking four-year-old Jade into bed and praying with her for the night when out of the blue she said, "Daddy, I love you more than all my toys and things!" My heart skipped a beat.

A few nights later, we were visiting relatives when I needed to check my email. I found a place to hook up to their network, but there wasn't a chair handy. No problem. This would just take a minute, I told myself as I sat on the floor and started up my laptop computer. Just then Jade came running through the room, tripped, and fell right onto the computer, sending a million colored lines across the screen.

As each person present assessed the damage, I heard comments like, "That's going to be expensive to fix!" and "Too bad it's no longer under warranty!" When Jade realized what she had done, she started crying. I picked her up and hugged her. "Don't worry, Baby," I whispered in her ear. "I love you more than all of my things!"  - Gabe Rucker

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