Lessons From a Lunch Pail

by Donna Poole

John was wrapping a used brown paper grocery bag around his old, dented, black lunch pail. It took a lot of tape.

“She’ll think it’s funny,” he said, convinced his daughter must have inherited at least some of his irrepressible sense of humor.

“I’m not so sure.”

Tomorrow Angie would be six years old. All she wanted for her birthday was a lunchbox she’d showed us several times. She couldn’t wait to carry it to the first day of first grade and show all the friends she’d made in kindergarten, even Wendy, her least favorite friend. When I’d asked her why she didn’t like Wendy as much as the others she’d said, “Because, Mommy, she tells the other kids what to do, and I want to tell the other kids what to do.”

Wendy might not be her favorite person, but Wendy and all the other kids would love the cute lunchbox.

I kept working on the butterfly birthday cake. Our little girl adored butterflies. I thought about her other gifts. Her Daddy got her a used bike from Fees, church friends, and hid it from her. When she was napping or sleeping that summer, he sanded it, painted it, and shined it until it looked new. Grandma and Grandpa Poole sent money for a new bike seat and streamers. We bought her training wheels. Her other gifts were a package of chenille pipe cleaners from us, crayons and a coloring book from three-year-old brother Johnnie, and magic markers and a notebook from one-year-old brother, Danny. Grandpa Piarulli sent money for material for me to make her a new dress.

Angie sat on the floor when it was time to open gifts. She opened everything but saw no lunchbox. Then her Daddy handed her the bulky, ugly wrapped package. She, opened it, and looked up at him, confused.

“It’s your new lunchbox! For first grade!”

Her bottom lip trembled. Tears spilled out of her huge brown eyes.

He hugged her. “Don’t cry! Open the lunch pail.”

Inside was a note she could read with little help: “Look on top of the refrigerator.”

John held her up so she could see the exact lunchbox she’d wanted. Tears turned to squeals of joy as she pulled it down and held it close, but Daddy’s eyes and face filled with regret as his look met mine. He feels bad about those tears to this day.

“Let’s go outside,” he said.

When Angie saw her new wheels parked next to Daddy’s car, she forgave him, but she too still remembers the not-so-funny ugly lunch pail.

Angie’s birthday was on Monday that year, Daddy’s day off, so he had time to help her learn to ride her new bike. Our good friends and neighbors, Hales, came for ice cream and butterfly cake and brought Angie a new dress. She went to bed a happy girl, thinking of her blessings, not the gift her Daddy had thought would make her laugh but instead had made her cry.

My heavenly Father has handed me a few packages wrapped in ugly paper with even uglier looking dented lunch pails inside. I know he doesn’t do it expecting me to share a sense of humor I can’t understand, but do I cry? Sometimes.

“God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.” –Charles Spurgeon

I need to remember to keep looking inside the lunch pails for the notes. I don’t expect God to lift me up and show me everything I asked for waiting for me on top of the refrigerator, but I do expect the notes to teach me to trust His heart. So far, I’ve found some breathtakingly beautiful notes in my dented pails, and I hope you have too.