Thankful

"The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort. But each time I make it, the next choice is a little easier, a little freer, a little less self-conscious. Because every gift I acknowledge reveals another and another."~ Henri Nouwen, "The Return of the Prodigal Son"
On a scale from 1 to 10, how thankful would you say you are for your family? We're not talking about being thankful when they drive you to a friend's house or when they finally give you a present you've been asking for. We're talking about being thankful for being loved and provided for. So how thankful are you? Now here's another very important question: How thankful do they think you are?
My (Sissy's) grandfather starts off every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter meal by saying, "Please bow your heads so we can return thanks." He's the only person I've ever heard use this phrase "return thanks" when asking people to pray. But it makes so much sense. As a family we are giving God our gratitude for all he has given us. We're returning thanks.
This chapter is about returning thanks to your family. We would guess that, although you feel pretty thankful for your family--at least some of the time--they don't necessarily know it. If you grew up in a Christian family, you learned how to show your gratitude to God through prayer and worship. But most of us do a pretty lousy job of returning thanks to the people in our lives. It might come a little more naturally with some of them. If one of your friends tells you they're thankful for you, you probably tell them back. But the people in your family are often the very last ones to hear your words of gratitude or know how you feel about them.
At our summer camps we often see significant changes in kids' lives. It might be that they decide to live their lives for Jesus or make a commitment to be a better friend, a more patient daughter, a kinder sister. And they do that--at camp. But several weeks later we see the parents of these very same kids at Daystar.
"What happened at camp?" they ask us. "I know you said it was a great week for Catherine, but she came home as grumpy as ever, if not more. She slept the whole car ride back, and I've hardly seen her since she's been home. She's with her friends constantly. When I try to talk to her, she just gets angry. I thought she matured this summer, but she seems to be moving backward."
We tell these parents that home is often the last place they'll see changes in their children. Why? Because most of us take our families for granted. We know they're not going anywhere, no matter how awful we are to them. We know they'll love us--no matter what. So our families get the brunt of all our bad moods and irritability. You know how it goes: You spend all day at school being kind and patient and friendly to everyone.
By the time you get home you're exhausted. Rather than getting your kindness, your family gets your grumpy leftovers--impatience, frustration, a short temper.
There's another problem with taking your family for granted--a loss of gratitude. How many hours of their lives have your parents spent driving you from one place to another? How many hours have they spent at work trying to earn money to pay for your clothes, or your activities, or your toys, or the gas for all that driving? How many cards have you received from your grandparents? How many times have your siblings shared their stuff with you or helped you with a problem or let you hang out with them, even when you were bugging them?
These questions aren't meant to make you feel guilty. They are meant to inspire gratitude--a sense of thankfulness--in you. We know, as Henri Nouwen said in the quotation at the beginning of this chapter, that gratitude doesn't come without some real effort--especially with our families. For all of us, even those of us beyond the age of 19, our families are often at the back of the line when it comes to showing gratitude.
Recently I (Melissa) met with 17-year-old Maggie and her dad. Maggie's parents are divorced and she lives with her mom during the week and with her dad every other weekend. But as Maggie has gotten older and busier, it's been getting harder and harder for her to get to her dad's on those weekends. She's a cheerleader, so Fridays are booked with football games. Saturday nights she is either with friends or her boyfriend. When it's time to go home, she's too tired to pack a bag and head over to her dad's. Sounds understandable, doesn't it?
Not from her dad's perspective. He sees that in two years Maggie will go off to college. His time with her is running out, and he wants to be with her as much as he can. So he feels very strongly about spending every other weekend with her--no matter what she has planned. He doesn't want her to cancel on her friends. He just wants her at his house so he can at least have breakfast with her on Saturdays and go to church with her on Sundays. He doesn't think it's a lot to ask.
Maggie and her dad are at a stalemate. If you don't play chess, that means neither of them is able or willing to move. She wants the convenience of her mom's house. He wants to be with Maggie.
I told Maggie the same thing we're telling you. Make the effort. Your family may not have been the perfect representation of what a family should be. No family is. But you can still be grateful for them. You can show them by what you say and how you act that you appreciate what they have done for you--no matter how much or how little you think that is.
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Taken from "Growing Up Without Getting Lost" by Melissa Trevathan and Sissy Goff, copyright 2008 Youth Specialties/Zondervan