This story I found called “The Gold Box” really moved my heart when I shared it yesterday as part of my Father’s Day 2017 sermon. Perhaps it it touch your heart as well and remind you of why we should be very careful before we speak….
Dad had come home from a hard day at work. He had washed his hands and went looking for his little girl. He came around the corner and there was his 3-year-old daughter wrapping a box with some gold paper his wife had purchased for a friend’s wedding gift.
Money was hard to come by and he snapped at her when he saw his little girl trying to decorate a box for no apparent reason.
The next evening, the Dad had settled into his favorite chair, when here came his little girl. She had a big smile and in her hands was the box wrapped in the gold foil. She held out the box and said, “Daddy, this is for you.”
The Father felt bad about the way he had reacted the previous day and eagerly opened the box. The frustration returned when he saw that the box was empty.
He found himself snapping at her again, “Don’t you know that when you give someone a present, there’s supposed to be something inside of it?”
The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, “O Daddy, it’s not empty. I blew kisses into the box. All for you, Daddy”.
The father was crushed. He reached out and put his arms around his little girl, and he asked her to forgive him.
The man kept that gold box for years. Whenever he was down, discouraged or upset, he would take out the box, open it and take out an imaginary kiss and remember the precious little girl who had put it there.
Though that box was empty of things, it was filled to overflowing with meaning because of the unseen love it represented.
Fathers, it is not the things that your children give you that endears their hearts to yours but instead their kisses, their loving words, the trust, the loyalty, the desire to spend time with you in your home.
Those are the gold boxes of love that give wings to your heart.
As always, I love you
Martin
