The Wedding Gift

Among the bright display of wedding gifts sat one misshaped box. The box sported smudged finger prints, and it’s once wholesome white paper was now wrinkled and torn from the numerous times is had been wrapped and rewrapped. The box even looked like someone had stepped on it once or twice. The names on the tag had been crossed out several times, and finally the grooms name was placed over the others. The present in the box was once beautiful and pure, now it lay soiled, tattered and broken.

It Never Used To Be Like This

            Once the present had been pure and perfect, too beautiful and precious to be purchased with money, it had been intended to not only attract the husband, but to also strengthen the marriage" making the two into one. The Father had given the gift to the bride to hand off to her beloved on their wedding day.

            Her Father warned her to guard the gift with her heart and soul, “Do not open this gift until I have introduced you to your beloved. Wait until I have given you my blessing on your wedding day.” The Father had said to the bride.             However, the bride’s need to be loved, the pressure to fit in, and the fear of missing out, caused the bride to open the gift and offer it to the first boy who gave her with the slightest attention. “It’ll be just fine,” she reasoned with herself, “I’ll marry this guy someday.” But it didn’t work out between them. He moved on. And the bride grew sad, the gift was torn, and when the chance for happiness came again, she opened her gift and offered it.

What a Gift!
            Over a period of time, the once pure gift had become a broken, disheveled promise of hope, happiness and love. Thinking back on what her Father had told her" the bide knew what she had done was wrong. She decided to put it aside and wait.

            One day the bride met her beloved, and he was everything she had ever hoped for. “I have a beautiful gift for you,” he told her. “My Father gave it to me to save for our wedding night. I long to open it for you now, but it will be worth the wait.”

             The bride hid her tears as he spoke. She went weeping before her Father with her strained and battered gift. “Forgive me. I am so sorry that have given away my gift before you have chosen my groom. Can you give me a new one? I wouldn’t dare give my groom this broken gift.”

            The Father looked at the bride and smiled sadly and took the gift in his hands. “There was a reason for my warning, but I want to you know I will always love you. My child, I can make you whole again, but I cannot make your gift whole again.”
            So the bide put her tattered gift on the wedding table, trusting the Father would help her husband find her gift as perfect as the one she would