My Fake Pearls

This story continues to stay with me...

One day a little girl was shopping with her parents when she came across a plastic pearl necklace. She begged her father to buy them and, of course, her father, being a dad to a daughter, did.

Well, day after day, week after week, year after year, that little girl went everywhere in her pearl necklace. And every night, when her father came to tuck her in, she would say, "Daddy, aren't my pearls beautiful?" He would smile and say, "yes, my darling daughter they are and so are you."
 

But one night, a few years later, his answer changed. She said, "Daddy, aren't my pearls beautiful?" This time; however, he smiled as he responded, "Do you love me?" The little girl looked surprised, "Of course I love you, Daddy" Well then, he said, "will you give me your pearls?" The little girl clutched her pearls with a confused and hurt look on her face. "No, Daddy, not my pearls... you can have anything, but please don't take my pearls." Her father leaned forward, kissed her head and left for the night. 

This exchange; however, was repeated the next night and the night after that and the night after that. Her father would come into her room and smile and say, "Do you love me?" She would answer back, "you know I do" and then he would say, "then give me your pearls." 

The little girl offered everything - her baby dolls, her barbies, her sticker collection, her board games, her art supplies, her teddy bear, but never her pearls - every night she kept clutching her pearls.
 

Until one night, her father walked into the room and found the little girl crying. He said, "honey, are you all right?" The little girl, nose red, eyes puffy, heald up a clinched fist. Slowly, she unfolded her fingers and between sobs said, "Daddy, I love you. Here are my pearls." A huge smile immediately broke across the father's face as he knelt beside her bed and reached his hand into his pocket. Slowly, he pulled out a real strand of pearls and placed them on his daughter's kneck. He had had them all along. He just wanted her to trust him enough to take the fake strand off before he put the real strand on

I woke up this morning with this story on my mind and one question in my head. What I am holding in a clinched fist today?

It's ok to hope and to dream, but we should always do our dreaming with open hands because, whether we are eight or eighty, when we come before the Father, we will always be a naïve little girl, who could quite possibly be holding on to a fake strand of pearls.

Let us not forget that He is the one who gave them to us in the first place. Let us not forget that He loves us. Let us not forget that His plans for us are good. Let us not forget that He is a giver and not a taker. Let us not forget that He takes counterfeit treasures for the sole purpose of replacing them with items of great value and eternal glory.

Let us not live our lives clutching plastic pearls.

-Biblically Blonde 

{"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.} Matthew 13:45-46