` 57,000 THANK YOU’S. Gwenda Steward

The mother beamed as her eleven-year-old son thanked her for the delicious dessert. A wife glowed with delight as her husband expressed his thanks for dinner, which she prepared with love and thought.

And I am the happy recipient of 57,000 ‘ Thank you’s’ ( plus or minus a few ) during 57 years of marriage, with a ‘thank you’ after each meal, whether I burned the toast or served a roast.

During world War 11, my husband often sat on the edge of a slit trench in Egypt with his fellow medical orderlies, as they ate tasteless, ‘bully beef’, the army misnomer for tinned meat. This fare accompanied thick, crumbly biscuits, and a mug of lukewarm tea with its coating of Sahara sand. There he resolved to be thankful for good, nutritious food at every meal when he returned to Australia to marry me. His example became the role-model to our son and grandsons, family members, and visitors as well

While parental responsibility includes teaching children to say ‘thank you’ from their earliest days, example is caught as well as taught.

A thankful heart is the fruit of God’s blessing. In every facet of life we experience the gracious goodness of God, when we have a heart to acknowledge His blessing.

I remember a hymn from childhood days,

‘ All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above.

So thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for all His love.’

It is possible to take life for granted, as I did until my open-heart surgery. Now as we give thanks at breakfast each morning, I thank God for sparing me for another day, with all its possibilities, challenges, and testings. It took a jolt to challenge my attitude.

One leper returned to thank the Lord Jesus for healing , while , sadly, nine walked away thanklessly ungrateful.

The Psalmist wrote when he prefaced each verse with a definite reminder, ‘ Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good. His steadfast love never fails.’ ( Psalm 136)

The writer enumerates the areas that merited thanks : creation, redemption, care, victory, guidance, promise, provision, and power.

Hundreds of years later Paul thanked his fellow-Christians regularly for their care which they expressed to him by prayer, monetary gifts, hospitality, fellowship and interest in his teaching ministry.

Four of my friends are widows, so similarly, their consistent prayer life encouraged us who are blessed by their faithfulness. When some of us thanked them for their loving ministry to our families, they seemed so surprised. But having received the answers to their earnest prayers , we would sin against them and God if we failed to express our gratitude.

Surpassing all, the greatest gift is that of reconciliation with God, which He made available when He allowed His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to take my sin in His own body on the Cross.

It requires more than 57,000 thank-you’s to adequately declare our gratefulness for God’s great and immense love.

But Paul wrote of his appreciation when he said,

‘ Thanks be to God for His unspeakable, inexpressible, indescribable gift.’

( 2 Cor 9:15)

As a family make a list of at least 20 blessings, for which you can say ‘Thank you’.

Count your blessings

List them one by one

And remember to say ‘Thank you’

For all that God has done.

If the Lord has blessed you on reading this article, please feel free to write :

Gwenda Steward hgsteward@cobweb.com.au