The Piggy Bank of Eternity

I have a piggy bank. I think my sister got it for me when I was like 12. It's pretty big as far as piggy banks go & it's hand painted. I fill it with any change I have in my wallet & any change I find on the ground. (I love finding change on the groud, it makes me happy!) The one thing about it is that it doesn't have a whole or a cork in the bottom, so I have no idea how much money is in there. I know there's a lot of chage in there, I think I weighed it once & it was over 10 pounds. The point is that I don't know how much is in there & the only way to find out is to take a hammer to it when it's full.

I think that's a little like life. I think we have our own little piggy bank of sorts, except instead of filling it with pennies & dimes we fill it with love for others. I think that's where the true value in life is, in valuing & loving others. I think we won't know the true value of the things we've done or the impact we have on others until we get to heaven. I think it's then that we'll fully be able to find out the impact we've had on others. I think it'll be cool to get to heaven & discover that maybe something small like a smile or a kind word made someone's day & I never even knew about it.

I think it's really important to love others. I think we're so used to just going about our every day lives that we forget how special & unique we all are. So I think that by loving others, it helps to remind them that they are special. I remember one day I came home from school & walked in the door & my dad asked who was there. He was very offended at my response, which was, "Oh, it's just me." He told me never to refer to myself as "just me" ever again, because he loved me & wanted me to remember I was special. I've always held on to that memory & now it actually offends me when people leave messages on my phone saying, "Hi Kelly, it's just ________. Call me back later," or anything along those lines. So I go about my life trying to love others to the best of my ability, because it's the people in my life that matter the most & it's incresibly important to me that they remember thier uniqueness. We spend so much time being critical of ourselves & others that we can forget that our relationships are the most important things that we have. Things can get stolen, houses burn down or get demolished, but our love for others can always remain. That's where true happiness is.

"Happiness! It is useless to seek it elsewhere than in this warmth of human relations." -Antoine de Saint Exupéry