"Alohalani can't find the $10 you gave her this morning," my husband said. "She's upset about it."

I turned to her, ready to give her the big speech on unconditional forgiveness as well as unconditional love or "someone just needed it more than you did." Or, "Is it more important to have the money instead of helping someone to understand the right and wrongs of friendship?"

"You lost your money? Do you think one of your friends took it?" I began, ready to draw the dividing line between childhood and "welcome to the real world."

Alohalani dropped her backpack, slid into the chair and looked into my eyes.

"Oh, Mom, my friends wouldn't do that to me, it probably fell out of my backpack."

Alohalani came to us at 3 months old. She had been abandoned. The neighbors heard her cries, she was covered in fecal matter and wore bed sores like a dress. She had pneumonia and was barely alive.

When I saw her, I thought, "What a precious gift."

We called her Precious. She needed to know that she mattered to someone.

Christmas is a time of giving gifts. They come in all sorts of wrappings, brilliant red or dazzling greens, gold with fancy lace. Others have different wrappings; newspapers from the comic sections are the most colorful. Strings from cardboard boxes or brown paper bags, done up with crayons. Wrappings like a rich man, or a poor one, beggar man, thief. Some come in the wrappings of doctors, lawyers, policemen and teachers. Still others come in the wrappings of an abuser, an alcoholic, a drug addict, the neighborhood bully or the 5 a.m. barking dog.

Some gifts come in the wrappings of devastating news, of loved ones who have passed, or a life-threatening diagnosis, especially during the holiday seasons. They feel like earthquakes, or going through the darkness of a storm.

Each is a gift, meant to enrich our lives, the earthquake that reforms the land. It is meant to reform the land of our hearts that we might have room at the inn. Or waiting out the storm in the light of a new day. The old has been washed away, its purpose served.

Precious came to us in her wrappings, of crusted sores that stunk to high heaven. Her ribbons were the constant heartbreaking cries of someone who was forgotten. We needed to get past what our eyes of judgments and criticism saw. Only then could we get close enough to unwrap the gift that she was meant to be in our lives, or we would never have discovered the girl that sat next to me today, a precious gift.

In this New Year, I'd like to share one of my favorite phrases, quoted by Dr. Wayne Dwyer.

He encourages us to "Change the way you look at things, and the things you're looking at will change."

Happy New Year.

A. Lee Totten, mother of 11, has adopted seven foster children.

Reach A. Lee Totten at (Unknown address).

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