Unexpected Package
Fifteen year old Taylor watched her sister walk down the aisle between the chairs aligned for the graduation ceremony. Courtney, Taylor's sister, was her class's valedictorian. She had made a beautiful speech about always looking for the best in people and how her school, her class was better prepared for the future because of the faculty. She talked about learning valuable lessons and how there was no greater gift than the gift of education they had received at that school. Within an hour, the class all moved their tassels, and threw their caps up into the air. Taylor just rolled her eyes at her sister. Nobody knew how she really was, not even her parents. Courtney was extremely shallow, but just put on an act to fool the rest of the world into thinking she was this genuine perfect person. Up until the day of her graduation ceremony, Courtney had been begging her parents for a mustang convertible for months on end. They had the money to buy her one, and she was almost positive that she would get it. She had her parents wrapped around her finger; it sickened Taylor. So, after the ceremony her father invited Courtney into his private study alone. But Taylor, being the little sister, had to sneak to the office to over hear her father and her sister's conversation. The office door was slightly cracked, just enough to hear what was going on inside, it was perfect for Taylor to hear, and just barely see through. She saw her dad reach into his desk and pull out a present, wrapped in mint green paper and wrapped with a white bow on top. It was as if Courtney knew what was inside the perfectly wrapped present. Taylor rolled her eyes again as Courtney insisted that her father shouldn't have gotten her a present, that was until she saw what it was. It was a brand new leather bible. Courtney dropped the book onto the ground and began yelling at her father for his stupidity for buying him a stupid book for a graduation gift. She tried to explain, rather rudely, that she was valedictorian of her class and the "Honor Student of the Year", that she deserved the car. With that said, she began to storm out of the room, leaving the bible lying on the floor. Luckily, Taylor was able to run off to her room before Courtney saw her. The next day, Courtney packed up and immediately left for college, without saying goodbye to either one of her parents, and never spoke to them the rest of the time that Taylor was in High School. Taylor rolled her eyes at her self-centered sister's actions. She knew that her act couldn't last forever.
Within three years, it was Taylor walking down the aisle instead of Courtney. Taylor was almost exactly like Courtney, valedictorian, Honor Student of her class, only with out the acting. She didn't beg for a car or anything else from her parents as a graduation gift. She was going into the air force and she didn't need all those material things that Courtney wanted when she graduated. Just like her though, Taylor's father invited him into his private study, almost like a strange sense of Deja Vous. Her father said how proud he was of her and that they couldn't ask for a better child. Taylor couldn't help but think this was the exact speech that he had given Courtney before she left their lives. He reached down into his drawer and pulled out the very bible that he had presented to Courtney three years prior, only with much more dust on the cover. Taylor accepted it gratefully and opened it right there on the spot. She flipped through the pages knowing this is the best thing that her parents could have given her for the air force. She knew it would come in handy. As she reached her favorite chapter, Jeremiah, she found a small bulge beneath the pages. Confused, she turned through the book page by page until she reached chapter twenty-nine. She stopped and looked up to her father who was smiling from ear to ear. Looking back down at the page she found a key taped to the page with the price tag that said "Paid in Full" on it. This was the key to the car that Courtney had been wanting her senior year of High School, and now it was Taylor's. The yellow, convertible mustang was hers. She also noticed one line in the bible highlighted in yellow. Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Taylor smiled at her favorite verse and walked around her father's desk and gave him a hug. She thanked him for the bible; just the bible. He knew the car was implied in her thank you.
"I know that the plans for your life are great ones…" was the only thing that her father had said to Taylor in the midst of their hug.