Being Thankful

Every Sunday morning St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church serves breakfast.  It's not a fancy meal, just scrambled eggs, sausage links, hash browns and a biscuit with juice and coffee and canned pears.  But for the nearly 100 homeless folks who arrive at 8am and walk down the steps to the basement social hall it could well be the only hot meal they receive that week.

    

 

I was invited to be a part of the volunteer Faith in Action ministry team from Grace Baptist Church in Blue Bell that prepared and served one of those Sunday meals in October.  We arrived at 7am, served breakfast at 8 until 9 and then quickly cleaned up and were on our way in less than an hour after the last meal was put on the table.  We did very little, actually, other than spend a couple hours early on a Sunday morning.

But I was struck at the gratefulness of our guests at the table.  Virtually every one of them before leaving to be on their way stopped by the kitchen door to say "Thank you!" to us, many making a point to shake our hands in gratitude.  Too often we who have so much in life tend to focus on what we lack, rather than what is already ours.  Yet the people who seemingly had so very little chose to be filled with thankfulness for what they had received.

So spend a moment on our national day of Thanksgiving to be grateful.  And then each day following live in gratitude for the many blessings of life that are yours.