"Thank You"

                                                                       “Thank You”

I am especially guilty of telling people thank you, and not really being grateful for them or what they did.
Regardless of how huge the task was that they performed for me, or how great the action was, I have
noticed that I have allowed myself to make “thank you” suffice. I’m not, by any means, saying that the
thank you isn’t enough, not at all. What I am saying or trying to bring attention to is that gratitude goes well
 beyond saying thank you, I appreciate you, or good looking out.

When we think of gratitude, I believe that it is a normal reaction to think of gratitude in a spiritual state of mind.
We are grateful for the many blessing God has bestowed upon us, we are grateful that a prayer was answered,
we are grateful that we were able to ……… whatever that thing is. In fact, last week, in the tool, I listed examples
that required us to sincerely thank God for allowing us to do things that others may not be able to do. As I was
thinking of which direction to take the tool for this week, something dawned on me. Do we forget to be grateful
for the ones we love because we believe that they are obligated to do for us?  

I have been thinking of this for the past two days, and shamefully I have missed the mark. So much so that I
believe our ungratefulness towards the ones we love show up in a form of taking them for granted. We do not
do it on purpose, and on the flip side, we do obligatory favors for the same reasons: we love them, we are related
 to them, they did something for us, we don’t want to be selfish. Ladies, I present a challenge this week. I am calling
 it a challenge because if what I believe to be true, we have taken a lot of people for granted and not expressed
gratitude to people who matter, right here on earth.

The Challenge:
This week, we are all to buy or make a thank you card for someone who touched us immensely, and mail it to them.
Seems easy right? Don’t be fooled. I am calling this a challenge because we cannot send the thank you card to
anyone in the group or Doug. I know we are keeping it amongst us right now, but it won’t be fair to Terri to get all
the cards and then have to choose who to send her card to.  In the card, be specific, tell them that you were grateful
l for the act they did and that it warranted more than just a thank you. Let them know that although it may have
happened some time ago, you’re grateful for it. In doing this, take note of your emotions; how do you feel when
shopping for the card, do you really feel grateful or are you just doing the assignment, how did you feel when they
advised you they got card? Let’s reconnect next week to see what happened. Also, in addition to sending a card to
someone you are grateful, please feel free to send one to us who are in the group as well because I know that I have
taken each of you for granted, though I am eternally grateful for you.