Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver. 2 Corinthians 9:7
After a long red-eye flight from the West Coast, my good friend Warren found himself back in Chicago. By the time he got home from the airport and tucked his tired frame into bed, the alarm clocks started going off in his children’s bedrooms. What was bedtime for him was wake-up time for his family.
His wife Cheryl did her best to keep their three children quiet as they dressed for school and ate breakfast together, shushing them as they went about their morning routine. Ironically, there may be nothing more disturbing—or loud—than this sound that is meant to quiet people down. Although Warren was not awake, he wasn’t asleep either. He continued to lie there in never-never land, his eyes closed but his ears hearing everything that was going on.
Anyway, after the two older kids were hustled off to school, Warren determined that he could now finally go to sleep. But at that moment, he heard the knob on his bedroom door slowly turning. The door squeaked open. In padded his four-year-old daughter, Terri.
What’s she up to? Warren wondered. Didn’t Cheryl tell the children not to disturb me? Gently closing the door behind her, my friend could hear Terri tiptoeing toward him. She carefully walked up to the edge of the bed, and although Warren didn’t open his eyes, he later told me that he could sense that his daughter’s face was only inches from his. After standing there for a few moments, Terri leaned over, tenderly giving her daddy a kiss on the cheek.
Warren was wide-awake, a fact his slumbering countenance betrayed. Terri turned and walked to the corner of the room. Taking hold of a chair, she slowly dragged it back to Warren’s bedside. Once it was in place, Terri climbed onto the chair. She crossed her legs, folded her hands on her lap, and stared at this sleeping man she loved.
Until her older brother and sister came home for lunch, three hours later, the only time Terri moved was to lean over and gently kiss Warren on the cheek again. This she did every fifteen or twenty minutes without prompting or reward. Warren did not sleep. He wanted to. He needed to. But his daughter’s expression of unrequited love kept him wide awake.
When he told me this story, Warren’s eyes filled with tears of overwhelming love and gratitude for this unforgettable morning. Terri had given her daddy the most precious thing an adoring daughter could have given—a free gift—love and affection with no expectation of any remuneration. No accolades. No pressure from anyone. No awareness that her daddy even knew what was going on.
“Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver” (v. 7), Paul told his readers. Warren’s story would have made the apostle smile. After hearing this story, he would have probably reminded us to love others with the same kind of purity, the same kind of spontaneity and joy as Terri did.
Early one morning many years ago, just outside of Chicago, a four-year-old girl gave her grown-up daddy a lesson in cheerful giving he would never forget. And now this true story is yours to enjoy. And remember.