The story is told of a little girl who was going to have a birthday. Her mother wanted to give her a birthday party and invite everyone in her entire class from school. The little girl did not want to invite everyone from her class at school because there were some children in her class she did not want to be around.

One little boy in her class was always dirty and it looked like he never washed his face or his hands. She especially did not want him to come to her party.

So she told her mother she only wanted a bowl of goldfish for her birthday and asked her mother to not have a big party for her.

But, her mother, thinking to be kind, sent invitations for the little girls’ birthday out to everyone in her class from school. It was a large class so her mother rented a hall for the party so there would be enough room. Her mother also baked her an enormous cake with many layers and iced it with her favorite icing.

On the day of her party the little girl stood behind the door of the big party room and did not want to come out. All the other children were waiting for her to come and unwrap her gifts.

Very slowly she walked into the room. Many of her friends came up and hugged her and said “Happy Birthday” to her. There were balloons and decorations everywhere. The little girl was shy but walked over to the gift table and smiled as everyone began to sing “Happy Birthday”.

While the children were singing the little girl noticed one brown paper bag in the midst of all the carefully decorated gift boxes. There was a piece of dirty string tied around the top of the brown bag and it was sitting on the table in front of the little boy that she did not want to come to her party.

There he was. Dirty face and hands. Dirty tee shirt. But this day he had a HUGE smile on his face as he and the other children sang “Happy Birthday” to the little girl.

One by one she unwrapped all the gifts that were on the table. There were many lovely things! Some of the gifts she received were real surprises as she never expected to receive such beautiful things.

After all the beautiful gifts were unwrapped her mother handed her the brown paper bag with the dirty string on top.

“Here honey,” she said, “You have one more gift.”

She looked away. She did not want to unwrap the bag. She did not know what was inside.

Her mother peeled the string off the top of the brown paper sack and handed it to her.

The little girl looked inside. She looked again.

Her hand went inside the bag and pulled out a beautiful goldfish bowl complete with multi colored goldfish swimming inside. They seemed to look up at her and say, “Well here we are!”

Her surprise was all over her face. She crumpled the brown paper bag and ran to the little boy with the dirty face.

“How did you know I wanted goldfish?” she asked him.

“ I don’t know,” the little boy said, “ I just figured that’s what I would want on my birthday!”

His face was smudged with chocolate.

The little girl picked up a napkin and wiped the chocolate smudge from off his face.

“Thank you so much for the goldfish!” she said to the little boy, and for all her life she remembered the birthday party.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

Back to Home Page