"Where did you get your valentines?" I asked a friend in the church hallway last night. She was carrying a load of large, shiny red hearts, looped over her arm by their white ribbons covered with heart stickers.
"The Missionettes made them for me," she explained, "I take them to the nursing home patients to put on their doorknobs." I took a closer look and saw they were artfully designed with scrapbooking embellishments of small, wooden hearts, cute sayings, and original drawings by the girls.
What a good project, I thought--helping the children to be thoughtful in service and ministry to others, as well as fostering creativity, self-expression and fun!
My friend was just retiring after 23 years of conducting a weekly nursing home service in a local facility. My husband and I had attended the service once and saw the love and dedication she had put into it. She had asked Howard to play the guitar and sing for them that day.
We had just come out of our Wednesday night Bible study on prayer. This was the final session of a four-week series, and tonight's subject was "Thankfulness." Jesus was our pattern for thankfulness, as He was always giving thanks to the Father. He obviously considered gratitude an important quality, for when He healed the 10 lepers and only one returned to thank him, He said in Luke 17:17-18, "Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger."
There is no doubt God takes ingratitude seriously, for when the Israelites complained of the manna and wanted meat, He sent quail. Then Numbers 11:33 says, "But while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague."
Their complaining and lack of thankfulness, despite the parting of the Red Sea, water coming from a rock, and many other miracles they saw, resulted in their wandering in the wilderness for forty years!
Our lesson made me think about being thankful, even for the little things I take for granted. At breakfast I not only thanked God for the food, but for those who produced it--the chickens that laid the eggs, the cows that gave the milk, the farmers who harvested the wheat for my toast and the workers who processed it. I thanked God for our warm house, the electric lights and even Benjamin Franklin!
I know the residents of the nursing home will be thankful for the gifts of the children, who are learning thankfulness themselves, besides the joy of giving!
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