IF YOU HAVE CAUSE TO BE GRATEFUL, WHY NOT SAY SO?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 31, 19 March 1948, Page 3

IF YOU HAVE CAUSE TO BE GRATEFUL, WHY NOT SAY SO?

(Contributed by the Ministers’ Association) Years ago I heard the late Professor Hewitson speak on “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” The last two words he. said he would take as a peg on which to hang a few remarks to the children. The few remarks have stayed with me all the years, influencing my life.

A writer in the Reader’s Digest expresses the same thoughts as the professor: “We were a group of friends in the midst of an afterdinner conversation ten years ago. . . . We were talking about what we had to be thankful for. ... A minister asked What can I say in a sermon that is affirmative’? That started us. One said, Well, I for one am grateful to Mrs Wendt, an old school teacher, who 30 years ago went out of her way to introduce me to Tennyson.’ She had, it appeared, awakened his literary interests and developed his. gift of expression. “Does this Mrs Wendt know that she made such a contribution to your life?” someone asked. Tm afraid not, I haven’t taken the trouble to tell her.’

‘Then why don’t you write to her? It would certainly make her happy, if she is alive, and it might make you happier, too. Far too few of us have developed the habit of gratitude.’

All this was very poignant to me, because Mrs Wendt was my teacher, and I was the fellow who hadn’t written. My friends’ challenge made me see that I had accepted something precious and hadn’t bothered to say thanks. That evening, on the chance that Mrs Wendt might still be living, I wrote her what I called a thanksgiving letter. My letter was forwarded from town to town. Finally it reached her, and this note I had in return, in a feeble scrawl of an old woman. It began:—

‘My Dear Willie’— That in itself was enough to warm my heart. Here was a man of 50, fat and bald, addressed as ‘Willie.’ I read on: —

‘I can’t tell you how much your note meant to me. I am in my eighties, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely and like the last leaf of fall, lingering behind.

You will be interested to know that I taught school for 50 years, and yours is the first note of appreciation I have received. It came on a blue, cold morning, and it cheered me as .nothing has in many years.’

I confess I wept over that note. My first thanksgiving letter had proved so satisfying that I made a list of people who had contributed something deep and lasting to my life, and planned to write at least one every day in November. I sent out 50 letters. Alb but two brought answers immediately. Those two were returned by relatives saying that the addressees were dead. And even those letters expressed thanks for the little bit of thoughtfulness. For ten years I have continued to write my thanksgiving month letters, and I have now more than 500 of the most beautiful answers anyone has ever received. A thanksgiving letter isn’t much. Only a few lines are necessary. But the rewards are so great that eternity alone can estimate them. Even now, in moments of discouragement, I go over the responses and drive away darkness by reading a few selected at random. Thanks to the rebuke of a friend I have learned a little about gratitude.