Give Thanks

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Is a gift really a gift if the recipient doesn’t know they’ve been given the gift?

That’s the question on my mind this Thanksgiving week. The holiday is intended to be an occasion to give thanks for the good things we have received in life. Most certainly it is a time to give thanks to God for those things that come most definitely from God. But we also give thanks for the people in our lives who have blessed us in certain ways.

But do we actually give thanks; do we actually tell those people that they have blessed us? Or do we lean back in our chairs and think, “I am thankful that old so-and-so is in my life or gave me that opportunity or came to my aid” or whatever we are thankful for? Wouldn’t it be better if we would express that feeling of thankfulness to that person so they would actually understand the depth of our appreciation. Wouldn’t it be better if we actually gave them the gift of our thanks?

I’ve been to a lot of funerals this year. That’s a time when we give thanks for how that person blessed and impacted our lives, but they are not in the room to hear it. Better if we could do that while they are alive. We had that opportunity recently at South Garland Baptist Church, where Thelma Kite was surprised by a service of thanksgiving for her decades of teaching in the church’s children’s ministry. Thelma has been my mother-in-law for 11 years and I’m somewhat late to the party in my knowing and loving her, but the church did a wonderful thing in giving her the gift of thanks while she is with us. They were able to actually give thanks and see that gift received and enjoyed.

I’m probably overly sensitive about this topic this year because it will be my first Thanksgiving without my father. In retrospect I wish I had said “thank you” more often. I know he knew that I was thankful, and it’s easy to brush aside the regrets with that knowledge, but still, I should’ve given thanks to him more often.

Bottom line: Giving thanks is more than just speaking words up into the heavens as a response to our feeling of gratitude. It’s a tangible gift that should be given liberally and given often.