Thankfulness As A Child

The wonderful thing about being a parent of a child later in life is going to the movies.  We choose to see only PG movies, but this includes all the cartoon movies I want to see.  Walking into a theatre with a bucket of popcorn, soda, and candy, we went to see HOP this past weekend.  The movies trailers for the next several months showed additional cartoon features.  I remember going to the movies in Orlando and taking RC bottle caps to win a chance at a bike.  I remembered the movies at the Orange Blossom Shopping Center and then walking down the sidewalk for ice cream at Dipper Dan's.  Life was simple for this young child.

Now, I have backaches and bills to pay.  I have to deal with work issues and family crisis.  The work of a hospice worker means dealing with death and families in their grief.  How can I be thankful as a child?  I look at Stefani for that answer. 

Children have to be taught to say thank-you.  It is not one of the first words which comes out of their mouths.  It takes patience and practice for them to get the point of saying thanks for something.  Children seem to think the world revolves around them.  Teaching them to say thank you takes the focus off of them and onto the giver.  Saying thank you reminds us we did not have something and needed another to provide us with it.  Thankfulness says I need you.

Childlike thankfulness means I have to thank God for each day and every moment.  I need to praise him for my food and job.  I need to say thank you to him for my family and their family issues.  I need to thank him for bills because he has given me the income to pay them. 

Paul tells us, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." (1 Corinthinans 13:11) I guess the more I can thank him for the problems and issues in my life I am moving from child-like thanksgiving to adult-like thanksgiving.