The small voice spoke from the silence of the back seat.
“I am thankful for Mike.”
“I’m sorry, Honey. What did you say?”
“I’m thankful for Mike. He told me how to get the cars on.”
“Which cars?”
“The new ones. For my Anki Overdrive. I didn’t know how to get them on right and he told me today at lower lot. I’m so thankful for him.”
“Oh. Oh yes, that was certainly nice of him. So, you’re thankful for him, and his friendship.”
“Yes.”
End of discussion.
I looked in the rear view mirror to see my little boy smiling to himself.
My son received a car and track system from Santa at Christmas, and got a couple new components for his eighth birthday this past weekend. I didn’t know he had any questions about how these supplementary pieces would work, because he never had questions before. But with kids, sometimes things are hidden from you.
In any case, he has a friend. A friend who helped him. Gave him a few directions while they stood in line, waiting for their parents to pick them up from school.
And my young son is vocalizing his gratitude about that friendship.
Letting his gratitude LIVE in his heart, and not be a fleeting moment of forgotten, “Thanks.”
Wonderful.
Why do we – as adults – make so little of gratitude?
And find it so hard to verbalize it?
Or allow ourselves to get hung up….
On what others might think if we just said the words, “Your kindness means so much to me”?
Or on the timing of such a remark?
Or on the “appropriateness” of it?
Why do we let the moments that touch us – go?
Isn’t life lived in the tiny, every day moments?
Shouldn’t we be most grateful when they are undeniably beautiful?
“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
My youngest son calls out in the middle of the night.
Oh my gosh it was hard.