Serendipity happened to a father this past Christmas. His family was wrapping all their Christmas presents. Julie, the man’s 4 1/2 year old daughter, wanted to do something, too. When her father took the cover off a box and laid it off to the side, Julie took it. When a piece of silvered wrapping paper was discarded, she took that, too. Eventually she had enough of these cast-off scraps to go to her room, and with great concentration wrapped a special gift for her daddy. Her package didn’t have the neatly folded corners of the other presents. Indeed, the box looked pretty strange and, I think, pretty special. On Christmas morning the family had gathered to distribute the plunder and rip open the wrappings. All the presents had been distributed, opened, and ooohhhed over. All of them except that of the little girl, Julie. As sort of the supreme climax to the festivities, she scrambled behind the tree where she had hidden her present and proudly presented it. "Daddy,” she explained, “this is for you." Dad shook it. "Julie,” Daddy commented, “it's mighty light." Dad made some appropriate guesses about the gift: “Is it a Volkswagen? Is it a St. Bernard? Is it a bowling ball?” No, it was none of those things. Finally, with considerable care he opened it. Looking inside and finding nothing, he commented, "Julie the box is empty. I love what you did but I’m confused; this is an empty box.” "But, Daddy, its not empty. Before I wrapped your present I blew the box full of kisses and put in all my love." The father had been looking for one thing and wound up finding another. Something quite finer than anything he might have imagined. It was serendipity. Serendipity comes at the strangest moments.
