A GIFT

We often learn the most from our children. Some time ago, a friend of mine 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 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 that 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 of it?"
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. In a very real sense, each parent has been given a gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children. There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.

Sand & Stone

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face.
The one who was slapped was hurt, but without saying anything wrote in the sand: TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE
The two kept walking, until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped became stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him.
After he recovered from near drowning, he wrote on a stone: TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE
The friend who slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?" The other friend replied, "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."