The Most Precious Gift of All

When I was young my parents did not have much money. They were raising six children. My father was the only one working and not making much money at his job. There were times when our church had to pitch in to help us with food to eat or money to pay the bills. My dad's favorite saying was God will find away. I can honestly say that when we had an empty refrigerator or the lights were getting ready to be cut off that out of no where someone always came to help. My dad said,"that God was looking out for us".

It was Christmas time and the pastor asked the members of the church to help a members family through the holidays. He said" that they were in need of food and Christmas presents for the children". My mother thought that since people helped us we should help others.

That Sunday my mother gathered food from the cabinets and put them in boxes. Then she went from one child to the other and asked if we had any toys we would be willing to donate to the family. I said "no"after all we were poor too so I did not have many. My mom spotted the doll baby on the shelf and said "you know they have a little girl who would love to have that baby doll". I said "sorry mama that is my baby doll". I was about twelve years old at the time and had not touched that baby doll in months. I was being greedy and knew it, after all I was into boys now and did not even want to play with dolls anymore.She asked me do you play with it? I said" not really but it is mine". She asked me how do you think that little girl will feel on Christmas if she opened up a present and found that baby doll inside? I thought about it for a few minutes and said" she would be so happy, like I was". That day I gave up my precious baby doll and learned a lesson in sharing.

A couples of weeks after Christmas my family went to visit this family. When the little girl walked out of the bedroom carrying the baby doll, I smiled and a warm feeling grew inside of me. I felt so good knowing that she was happy. I knew then that helping people was a good thing.