A Hymn For Him

Most children have to learn to say “thank you” even before they know what it means. Visser states, “Eventually, when [children] have matured and been further educated, they will come to be able to feel the

emotion that the words express. The words come first, the feelings later.”

Based on this research Visser concludes that learning to be thankful involves a steep learning curve. She writes, “In our culture thanksgiving is believed to be, for most children, the very last of basic social graces they

acquire … .Children have to be ‘brought up’ to say they are grateful. The verb is passive: they are brought up,

they do not bring themselves.”

Visser also notes that, although we have to grow into the practice of thanksgiving, once we finally learn to be

grateful, we seldom forget it: “Such phrases [like ‘thank you’] become so ingrained in us that they last when

almost everything else has been forgotten. In states of aphasia, or in people suffering from Alzheimer's disease,

these little phrases often survive the shipwreck of other memories.”

CLOSE

As we close today, I want you to share some things for which you are thankful. Come on, now. Don’t be shy. Shout out your praises and reasons for thanksgiving this morning. (Let congregation share.)

Now that you’re done, I want to tell you a reason that I’m thankful this morning. Anna and I still get to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. You see, Anna, Brayden, and I survived a serious car accident yesterday. We were taking Brayden back to his parents (our son and daughter-in-law) in Princeton, IN. We were only a few blocks from their house when someone came flying through an intersection and smashed into our car.

They were moving fast and did a lot of damage. The old green Chevy is totaled. I saw them coming and hit the accelerator but the other vehicle never slowed and hit us on the driver’s side rear panel. It knocked us into a utility pole and we bounced back into the street.

A good number of people happened to see or hear the accident. They ran to our aid. The person who hit us left the scene. The witnesses described the vehicle to the police and some even went to look for the vehicle and person that hit us. They found her and the police went to her house. She lived just around the block from our son’s house. She had no driver’s license and was driving a borrowed vehicle.

We’re okay. We’re banged up a little. We’re very sore and stiff. We have a few glass cuts. But we learned that there was a lot for which to be thankful.

I’m thankful that I could still lead worship this morning.. That chemical inside of those airbags sure does get into your lungs. I coughed and sneezed a lot after the accident trying to get that stuff out of my system. My throat felt pretty rough last night. And the muscles in my left forearm are sore and stiff. That’s why I didn’t play the guitar this morning.