For Things Great and Small, We Should Give Thanks

When you look up at the full moon and see Jupiter and Venus blazing brightly in the velvety night sky, what do you think or feel?
On special days when the sun sets, and the sky is ablaze with hues of red and pink, can you appreciate the scene?
After you take aspirin for a headache, and, like a fog that drifts into nothingness, that pain is gone, does it give you pause?
When you go into a supermarket, especially in mid-winter, and cast your eyes upon fresh fruit and vegetables of every description, does that amaze you?
Your car’s fuel gauge plunks over toward “E” and you swing into a service station, and indifferently order, “Fill it up,” does the trans-ocean journey of those 10 or so gallons of gasoline enter your mind?
You want to talk to Uncle Hugo in Bismarck, N.D., so you grab the telephone and dial his number. Within seconds, Uncle’s phone rings, and he picks up and you being a conversation. Is that an amazement to you?
Life is terribly rugged starting or ending the day with an ice-cold shower. When you twist the faucet to “H” and hot water pours out in abundance, are you grateful?
You’re one of the modern generation who believes in a cashless society. When it’s time to pay at a checkout counter, you whip out a credit or debit card, then swipe it. Does it ever occur to you that transaction may be traveling to a satellite 22,000 miles in space to verify your account, relay your data, then approve it all in a matter of seconds?
All these things and many more are among the “small” things that we have come to overlook and not appreciate.
Running water is something we expect, almost as if it was our right as a human. There are people in Third World nations, in Congo and Haiti, to name just two, who do not have the luxury of running water. They must go to a water source, then fill jugs with the life-sustaining liquid, then carry it home.
The only running water they have is when they, personally, run with it.
Forget mountains of fresh and canned food, some starving people fight for small packs of flour and cornmeal distributed by aid agency workers.
Education, that thing we cherish for our children and grandchildren, what we cling to from before kindergarten well into old age, is but a dream for many in the world.
Electricity that flows freely from outlets throughout our homes and offices, schools and stores, still evades many people around the world.
Modern medicine offers miracles of all sorts. Pacemakers give slow hearts a needed surge of power. Insulin pumps allow a diabetic to live a fairly normal life. Lens implants allow clouded eyes to see. Artificial limbs allow lives to be more fully lived.
Parents can “see” their unborn children still in the womb. Skilled physicians and surgeons can assist helping tiny lives flourish when, years prior, they would have had no chance at survival.
There is so much for which we have to be grateful and thankful, it would take this entire addition to list all of them. Regardless, I sense many people are just unhappy and cannot see the things for which they should be thankful.
Certainly, daily news is grim, but was it ever bright and cheerful? Think back in American history. Was there ever a day when all the news of the morning was “happy?” Go back to a certain year. Put out a newspaper archive; flip to any day’s stories. Were they filled with hope and cheer? No, certainly not. That is the nature of news.
Through the roughest of times, there is always something for which to be thankful. Poor as a family may be, they are far wealthier than billionaires if they eat together, laugh together, hope together, and share dreams and sorrows among each other.
A car may be old and in need of repair and a coat of paint, but if it gets its driver to work or shopping, school or worship, it’s far better than walking. Realize that in some countries those who possess a bicycle, one per family, are among the most fortunate, since they have the ability to carry produce or goods to other villages to trade and make money.
We may gripe about the television shows on our 50-inch wide screens. Consider those around the globe who may still rely, for entertainment and news, on a simple, short-wave radio powered by the sun or hand-cranked magneto because batteries are too expensive or just not available.
Many of us will gather tomorrow around a table filled with bounty. Next to us may be family or friends, strangers or Coast Guard recruits, hosted through the Red Cross’ Operation Fireside program. On the table will be more food for that one meal than many people around the world will have in a week or even longer.
Let us be thankful for what the Lord has provided to each of us.
To paraphrase what the late Rev. William W. Shelton would admonish his congregation: “Every time you say ‘thank you’ is ten times you don’t have to say ‘please.'”
Happy Thanksgiving.