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 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 present, there’s supposed to be something inside it?”

The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said,”Oh, Daddy, 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 child who had put it there.

In a very real sense, each of us as humans have been given a gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children, friends, family and God. There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.

Giving Blood many years ago, when I worked as a transfusion volunteer at Stanford Hospital, there is a little girl named Liza who was suffering from a disease and needed blood from her five-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. He hesitated for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, “Yes, I’ll do it if it will save Liza.”

As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as all people did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, “Will I start to die right away?”

Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give her all his blood.

She jumped up as soon as she saw the surgeon come out of the operating room. She said: ‘How is my little boy? Is he going to be all right? When can I see him?’

The surgeon said, ‘I’m sorry…. We did all we could, but your boy didn’t make it.’ Sally said, ‘Why do little children get cancer? Doesn’t God care anymore? Where were you, God, when my son needed you?’
The surgeon asked, ‘Would you like some time alone with your son? One of the nurses will be out in a few minutes, before he’s transported to the university.’

Sally asked the nurse to stay with her while she said good bye to son. She ran her fingers lovingly through his thick red curly hair. ‘Would you like a lock of his hair?’ the nurse asked. Sally nodded yes. The nurse cut a lock of the boy’s hair, put it in a plastic bag and handed it to Sally.

The mother said, ‘It was Jimmy’s idea to donate his body to the University for Study. He said it might help somebody else.. ‘I said no at first, but Jimmy said, ‘ Mom, I won’t be using it after I die. Maybe it will help some other little boy spend one more day with his Mom.’ She went on, ‘My Jimmy had a heart of gold. Always thinking of someone else, always wanting to help others if he could.’

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John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?” He replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood, I choose to be in a good mood.”

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life. “Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested. “Yes, it is,” he said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life.”

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A girl was sitting on a chair at the gas station she worked at. She looked up and saw her boyfriend walk in. As he was looking at snacks, a man walked in and pointed a gun at her. He had been admiring her ring her boyfriend had given to her as a token of his love. When he asked her to give it to him, she said no. Her boyfriend looked up just in time to see her shot. He ran over to the killer and beat him over the head with a hammer that was for sale. Then he ran and called 911. When the ambulance came, he was sobbing uncontrollably near his girlfriend.

The doctor came over and felt for her pulse. Then he stood up and said she was still alive. Later at the hospital, as he was sitting beside her, he asked”Why didn’t you just give him the ring?” and then she softly spoke”Because when you gave it to me, you said it was part of your love for me and I knew if I gave him the ring, I would lose that love.” The next day, she was pronounced dead.

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE, Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the M.K.   Gandhi Institute for Non-violence, in his June 9 lecture at the University of Puerto Rico, shared the following story as an example of “on-violence in parenting”:

“I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban, South Africa, in the   middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep in the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or go to the movies.

One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an all-day conference, and I jumped at the chance. Since I was going to town, my   mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and, since I had all day in town, my father ask me to take care of several pending chores, such   as getting the car serviced. When I dropped my father off that morning, he said, ‘I will meet you here at 5:00 p.m., and we will go home together.’

After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to the nearest movie theatre. I got so engrossed in a John Wayne double-feature that I   forgot the time. It was 5:30 before I remembered. By the time I ran to the garage and got the car and hurried to where my father was waiting for me, it was almost 6:00. [Read more...]

A young man was getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer’s showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted. As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation, his father called him into his private study.

His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him.

He handed his son a beautifully wrapped gift box. Curious, but somewhat disappointed, the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible, with the young man’s name embossed in gold. Angrily, he raised his voice to his father and said, “With all your money you give me a Bible? And stormed out of the house, leaving the Bible. [Read more...]