Here is a beautiful text that can be beneficial to us all
A cheerful little girl with blonde curls, almost five years old, waiting with her mother near the checkout, spots a necklace of all-glistening mother-of-pearl beads in a pink aluminum box!
Oh please, Mom, can I have them? Mom, I’m begging you, please?
Quickly, the mother looked at the back of the pink box and turned toward those little blue eyes that were pleading with her, her small face tilted upward.
$1.85. That’s almost two dollars. You know, if you really want them, you can do extra chores at home and in no time at all you’ll have enough money to buy them yourself. And your birthday is only a week away, so you’ll probably get some money from your grandmother too.
As soon as Jenny got home, she emptied her little piggy bank… she counted 17 cents. After dinner, she did more than ask to help around the house, and then she went to her neighbor Mrs. McJames’s house to ask if she could pull her weeds for 10 cents?
On her birthday, her grandmother gave her another dollar, and finally she had enough money to buy the necklace.
Oh, Jenny loved her pearls. They made her feel like a lady and a big girl. She wore them everywhere—on Sunday at church, at daycare, even to bed!
The only times she took them off was to swim or take a bath. Because her mother had told her that if they got wet, they might turn her neck green.
Jenny had a father who loved her very much, and every evening when it was time to put her to bed, he would stop whatever he was doing to go tell her a nice story.
One evening, after finishing his story, he asked Jenny: Do you love me?
Oh yes, Daddy, you know I love you! So, give me your pearls.
Oh, Dad, not my pearls. But you can have my Princess—the white horse from my collection. The one with the pink tail. Do you remember, Dad? You gave it to me. It’s my favorite.
That's okay, my little one. Daddy loves you. Good night! And as always, he lightly kissed her cheek.
About a week later, after bedtime story, Jenny's dad asked her again: Do you love me?
Dad, you know I love you
So, give me your pearls.
Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you know, you can have my doll, the new one, it’s brand new, the one I got for my birthday, it’s so pretty, and you can even have the little yellow blanket that matches her shoes.
That’s okay. Sleep well. May God bless you, my little one. Daddy loves you! And as always, he gently caressed her cheek with a kiss.
A few evenings passed, and one evening, when her father entered the room, Jenny was sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed. As he approached her, he noticed her little chin trembling and a silent tear rolling down her small cheek.
What’s wrong with you, Jenny? What’s going on?
Jenny said nothing but raised her small, slender hands toward her father. And when she opened them, the pearl necklace was there. With a trembling voice, she said to him: Here, Daddy, it’s for you.
With his own tears streaming down his face, Jenny's kind father took the fake pearls in one hand and, with the other, pulled a blue velvet case from his pocket containing a necklace of real pearls, and gave it to her.
He had had them from the beginning. He was just waiting for her to give him the fake pearls so that he could give her the real treasure.
Like God, He expects us to give Him the false things we hold onto in our lives, so that He may replace them with a magnificent treasure.
Are you holding onto something that God wants you to let go of?
Do you have companions that are unnecessary and hurt you? Habits, activities, to which you are so accustomed and attached that it seems impossible to get rid of them?
Sometimes it’s hard to see what the other hand is holding, but believe in one thing…
God will never take something you hold dear without replacing it with something better!
You can do two things with this story
a) You inform the others who will be affected
b) You can keep it for yourself and not be affected by it.
The most beautiful gifts come when you share love and touch others' hearts.
Have a good day
Marylena