If you want to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what
respect people ought to pay you, and what people think of you.
There is a children’s book, used in nursey schools years ago, which shows a little boy visiting a farm to thank the cow for the milk he had for breakfast. Then he goes to the hen house to thank the chickens for his eggs; he thanks a sheep for his warm bathrobe and so forth. The idea, of course, is to help children become aware of the bigger world on which their small daily rounds depend. Most adults would balk at thanking animals whose gifts are unintentional, but all of us could use thanks as a door to awareness of much that we take for granted. Most of the time you will never know what effect your thanks have on the recipient. Though you can be sure that occasionally they will be more important than you dream, arriving at a low period in an
other person’s life. The story is told of a housewife who came across an old geography book while cleaning in her attic. As she leafed through its dusty pages, the woman remembered the spinster teacher who had taught the course, telling stimulating stories which painted indelible pictures of far away places in the minds of her young students. The housewife, who loved to visit new lands, loved to read about the people and customs of other countries, realized that the seed had been planted by this teacher. Taking the book to her desk, she wrote a note thanking the teacher for “doing more than teaching geography.” A short time later, an answer came to the housewife. The teacher, since retired, wrote in scrawling letters, telltale of her age, “You are the first student in all my years of teaching who ever said thank you.” Appreciation can make a day— even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary. Though response to your efforts is unpredictable, the effect on your own life is certain. You will be training yourself day by day in seeking out the good and praiseworthy around you, rather than the more attention catching evil and annoying things. Thankfulness toward other people is, of course, both a preparation for and an indication of our thankfulness to God. It is probably easier to develop a sense of gratitude to other human beings just because their goodness to us is of necessity limited and specific, but from God “all blessings flow.”
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