Читать книгу Hope’s Daughters - R. Wayne Willis - Страница 72

I once received a lovely gift from someone in or around Leavenworth, Indiana. It is a framed piece of embroidery that has one of my favorite Bible verses sewn on it. I only wish I could find out who made it (or had it made) so I could thank her (or him).

Some of life’s greatest gifts—the ones that mean the most—are the anony-mous ones.

Last weekend I listened to two different couples tell of their recent experience in a restaurant. When they asked for the check they were informed by the waiter that someone had already picked up the tab. I have also heard of people at a drive-through restaurant, or in a grocery check-out line, or at a gas station who had a similar experience—some anonymous donor, for whatever reason, had already paid their bill.

My favorite “anonymous gift” story comes from Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. He tells of a time as a child, playing in his back yard, when he saw the hand of a little boy or girl come through a hole in the fence. The next time he looked, the hand was gone, but in its place was a little white sheep. Little Pablo spontaneously ran in his house and brought out his own treasure, a pine cone he loved, left it in the same spot, and took the sheep. The two children never met. Years later, in a house fire, the little white sheep perished. Pablo Neruda said that even as a grown man, whenever he passed a toyshop he looked in the window for a little white toy sheep to replace the one he lost.58

To feel the affection of someone whose identity is unknown enlarges our souls, tenderizes our hearts, and binds us to a not-all-bad human race.