Receive the Greatest Gift
(June 20, 2010)
It was Father’s Day 2009.
There I sat alone in church, the first Father’s Day without James and I wondered if Avery was feeling what I was. Actually I wasn’t sure what I was feeling…sadness, loneliness, anger or maybe it was just pain knowing that Avery didn’t have a daddy to celebrate with today and how it just didn’t seem right. As usual though, God knows my pain and reminds me that He is with me. Dr. Bob Barnes spoke from the pulpit as he does every Father’s Day in what has become a tradition at Calvary Chapel. He told a story that I am reminded of a year later this Father’s Day 2010.
The story of the pearl bracelet: A father takes his little girl to the dollar store and she spots a plastic pearl bracelet.
“Oh Daddy, it’s beautiful, will you buy it for me?” she asks.
“Yes” he replies, and she excitedly wears it day and night and loves it above all she possesses. One night as the father is putting her to bed he asks her “Honey, do you love me?”
“Of course I do, daddy” she replies.
“Then give me the pearl bracelet”.
She is astonished at his request and tears up not wanting to part with her prized possession.
“Please, no daddy, I love it so much”.
He makes the request the next night as well until finally, with reluctance she hands him the simple, plastic, dollar store pearl bracelet. He takes it from her, puts it in his pocket then reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a genuine, real pearl bracelet and puts it on her wrist. With that he said, “Honey, I just wanted you to give me what you had because I have so much more for you.”
Paul said it better in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” God promised me that day that even though I gave up what I believed to be such a precious and prized possession, a husband and father of my child, He still has so much more for us. After all, He sent His only Son to die for me, won’t he so graciously give me the desires of my heart and meet the needs of my child? To remind me of this story, I wear a plastic pearl bracelet on my left wrist. On my right wrist I wear a bracelet that says “believe”.
Blessed is she who believed what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished, Luke 1:45. Mary was blessed because she believed that she would be the mother of the Messiah. God blessed her for believing. I too, want to be blessed for believing. I believe that God is not done with me yet, He has many blessings in store for Avery and I in this life not to mention the treasures in heaven. Crazy thing is that these promises are not exclusive to just Avery and I, they are for all of us…if we just BELIEVE.