On the Facebook Thankfulness

I’ve never been big on the Facebook status or Twitter trends.

“Like this if….”

Play by plays of whatever hit show, debate, game, etc. is on at the moment are usually more frustrating than exciting…especially when it’s from the same person. You know the type.

For some reason, this year, the 30 days of Thankfulness seemed like the thing to do.
Not because I want to brag.
Not because I think it’s necessary to be a good person.

But I know that I, personally, don’t take enough time out of my day to look up and say “Thanks, Dad”…even for the small things.

I try to keep it interesting, funny even, because I know that they are everywhere.

And I get it, I do.

I am usually the first to jump on the cynical wagon about how people in the first world don’t get what “thankful” truly means.

We aren’t dying of malaria.
We aren’t worried about whether we will have access to food.
We aren’t separated from our families because of war in our hometown.

I’ve seen it.

The starving children, the leper colony, the hopelessness.
Those of us who have seen it know that it can be harder to accept some of the practices and thoughts and priorities of others that haven’t.

Especially when you first get back, it’s hard to take people seriously with their “thankfulness” for a Grande upside down soy caramel extra foam latte.

But with some recently noted cynicism, I was reminded…

I was leading a trip for some junior high kids somewhere south of the border.

We had just gotten back on the bus from one of the less fortunate sites that we visited.
We opened up the floor for them to share what they had learned.

At this point, you always hope that they begin to see how much they have to be thankful for: education, food, clean water, medical care, etc.

One of the girls raised her hand to share. She had been moved to tears by this revelation and I was so excited to see what change she was undergoing inside.

Her lesson was this.

“Ya know, I just realized how blessed I am. I have parents who love me, and….and. I mean…these girls don’t even know what Coach is!…”

Not kidding.
She proceeded to explain how much she had been moved and how much she had to be thankful for. But that was what had triggered it. Coach.

In that moment I realized something.

We are all in different places.
We all have different experiences.
We all have different motivations.

And who am I to judge someone who is thankful for something that I deem “trivial”.

Sure, we all need to get over ourselves in some way or another.

And for those of us who “have it all figured out” because we understand “true” thankfulness….we need to get over ourselves in thinking that we have it all figured out, including what people “should” be thankful for.