"Thank You"

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Colossians 3:15

 
At the end of October I attended a program on burnout.  It was incredibly eye-opening and one of the things that has stayed with me from the speaker is the phrase “thank you”.  For those who are receiving a thank you, we are often walking away from the person while they are offering us thanks.  For a healthcare professional, the nurse or doctor is leaving the room, onto the next thing and the patient cries out “thank you” and the gratitude is left behind.  In our personal relationships, we may have stopped saying thank you, because it is the small and routine things that we have agreed to or maybe we feel that since the work has been divided fairly and all parties have agreed that the token of thanks is unnecessary. 
 
 
These thank you statements should mean something.  It shouldn’t be something said or received in haste.  The speaker’s recommendation was to turn around and let a thank you wash over us.  To recognize the worth in what we are doing and to gracefully take that gratitude and allow it to fill our tank!  In addition, he encouraged us to work on a meaningful thank you.  Taking the time to say it and mean it and not to just “parrot” an automatic response.


 

As we prepare for the holidays and the promise of a new year I have been thinking about expressing and receiving gratitude.  I like the idea of really telling someone how grateful I am to them or their service.  While the organization I work for strongly encourages regular thank you notes, I think there is some hesitancy to say thank you too much should it begin to lose its sincerity.  Finding the balance between too much and not enough is delicate but is gratitude a place where this should be measured?           

 

Prayer: Gracious and merciful God, help us to be thankful for the people that fill and enrich our lives.  Help us to share a thank you with all those who need one and help us allow our gratitude to shine through in a world that so often seems filled with blame and hate.  When others are grateful to us, help us to gracefully accept this gratitude and recognize it’s meaning in our lives.  May we always share these kindnesses as a reflection of your work on earth.  Amen.   

 

Christi Moock