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HOW TO GIVE THANKS IN THE MIDST OF LOSS
When you've lost something or someone precious, it is easy to forget that "the Lord gives and the Lord takes away." He doesn't owe us a reason.
John Claypool was a pastor in Louisville, Kentucky many years ago. He and his wife lost their daughter, Laura Lou, to leukemia. He later explained his loss by telling a story from his childhood.
During WWII his family didn't own a washing machine, and since gas was rationed, they couldn't afford to drive to a laundry. Keeping their clothes clean became a challenge. John's neighbor went into the service and his wife moved in with her family. They offered to let John's family use their Bendix wringer washer while they were gone. They reasoned it would be better for it to be used than to sit rusting on the porch.
John helped with the family's laundry, and he said he developed a fondness for that old green Bendix. When the war ended his neighbors returned, and they reclaimed their washing machine. Over the course of the war, young John had actually forgotten the machine was loaned to them, so when the neighbors removed it, John was upset and angry that they would take his washing machine. His mother sat him down and said, "John, you must remember that the washing machine never belonged to us in the first place. That we ever got to use it at all was a gift. So, instead of being mad at it being taken away, let us use this as an occasion to be thankful that we ever had it at all."
John Claypool would say years later he struggled with the death of eight-year-old Laura Lou, until he remembered that old green Bendix. He wrote: "When I remember that Laura Lou was a gift, pure and simple, something I neither earned nor deserved nor had a right to; and when I remember that the appropriate response to a gift, even when it is taken away, is gratitude, then I am better able to try and thank God that I was ever given her in the first place." (Steps of a Fellow Struggler)
That's exactly how Job felt. He knew every good thing in his life had come from God, and God had the right to take anything away. That's the kind of attitude that will keep you from becoming bitter when you face loss.
(From a sermon by Fred Markes, Praise God, 8/30/2011)
Bruce Howell
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The story is told (by Ernest Hemingway) of a father and his teenage son who had a relationship that had become strained to the point of breaking. Finally the son ran away from home. His father, however, began a journey in search of his rebellious son. Finally, in Madrid, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in the newspaper. The ad read: “DEAR PACO, MEET ME IN FRONT OF THE NEWSPAPER OFFICE AT NOON. ALL IS FORGIVEN. I LOVE YOU. YOUR FATHER.”
The next day at noon in front of the newspaper office, 800 “Pacos” showed up.
ILL. A few years ago, Bill Cosby began his book, "Fatherhood," with these words: "So you’ve decided to have a child. You’ve decided to give up quiet evenings with good books & lazy weekends with good music, intimate meals during which you finish whole sentences, sweet private times when you’ve savored the thought that just the two of you & your love are all you will ever need.
"You’ve decided to turn your sofas into trampolines, & to abandon the joys of leisurely contemplating reproductions of great art for the joys of frantically coping with reproductions of yourselves. Why?"
He goes on, "Poets have said the reason to have children is to give yourself immortality; & I must admit I did ask God to give me a son because I wanted someone to carry on the family name. Well, God did just that & I now confess that there have been times I’ve told my son not to reveal who he is. `You make up a name,’ I’ve said. `Just don’t tell anybody whose son you are.’"
WE THOUGHT YOU SAID...
The kids had talked Mom into getting a hamster They promised to take care of their pet, whom they named “Danny.”
Within two months, though, Mom was taking care of Danny. One day Mom decided enough was enough; Danny would be given to a new owner. She called the kids together to tell them. One child said, “I’ll miss him. He’s been around here a long time.” The other child remarked, “Maybe he could stay if he ate less and wasn’t so messy.” Mom was firm...
Our doctrine of equality and liberty and humanity comes from our belief in the brotherhood of man through the fatherhood of God.
Some years back Bill Cosby wrote a book simply entitled Fatherhood. I would like to share with you two observations that Cosby makes about fathers. He writes:
Now that my father is a grandfather, he just can’t wait to give money to my kids. But when I was his kid and I asked him for fifty cents, he would tell me the story of his life. How he got up at 4 A.M. when he was seven years old and walked twenty-three miles to milk ninety cows.
And the farmer for whom he worked had no bucket, so he had to squirt the milk into his little hand and then walk eight miles to the nearest can. All for 5 cents a month. The result was that I never got my 5O cents.
But now he tells my children every time he comes into the house, “Well, let’s see how much money old Granddad has got for his wonderful kids." And the minute they take money out of his hands, I call them over to me and I snatch it away from them. Because that is MY money!
The other story Cosby tells is the difference between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. He insists that Mother’s Day is a much bigger deal because Mothers are more organized.
Mothers say to their children, “Now here is a list of what I want. Go get the money from your father and you surprise me on Mother’s Day. You do that for me.”
For Father’s Day I give each of my five kids $20, so that they can go out and by me a present--a total of $100. They go to the store and buy two packages of underwear, each of which costs $5 and contains three shorts.
They tear them open and each kid wraps up one pair, the sixth pair of underwear going to the Salvation Army. Therefore, on Father’s Day I am walking around with new underwear and my kids are walking around with $90 worth of my change in their pockets.
In his book “Fatherhood”, Bill Cosby wrote, “Now that my father is a grandfather he just can’t wait to give money to my kids. But when I was a kid and I asked him for 50 cents, he would tell me the story of his life. How he got up at 5 a.m. when he was 7-years-old and walked 23 miles to milk 90 cows. And the farmer for whom he worked had no bucket, so he had to squirt the milk into his little hand and then walk 8 miles to the nearest can. All for 5 cents a day. The result was...I never got my 50 cents.” “But now he tells my children every time he comes into the house, ‘Well, let’s see how much money old Granddad has for his wonderful grandkids.’ And the minute they take money out of his hands I call them over to me and I snatch it away from them. BECAUSE THAT’S MY MONEY.”
A SURVEY OF FATHERS
The June 2003 issue of Family Circle Magazine contained results from a recent national survey of fathers. It had some interesting results:
* 94% feel building a family is the hardest and most important thing
a man can do.
* 71% say fatherhood is more demanding than they expected, while 88% say fatherhood is more rewarding
* 87% say the rewards of fatherhood trump those of career, and 89% approve of men leaving fast-track careers to spend more time with family.
* 90% say becoming a father made them ...
False prophets talk much about the love of God but nothing of His holiness, much about people who are deprived but nothing about those who are depraved, much about God’s universal fatherhood of every human being but nothing about His unique fatherhood only of those who are His children through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, much about what God will give to us but nothing about obedience to Him, much about health and happiness but nothing about holiness and sacrifice. Their message is a message of gaps, the greatest gap of which leaves out the truth that saves. (MacArthur, J. F. (1985). The MacArthur New Testament Commentary. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Mt 7:16). Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books.)
FATHERHOOD
The National Organization for Women has filed a complaint with the Health and Human Services Dept., saying a program intended to promote responsible fatherhood is illegal because it's only about men. WashingtonPost.com 3/29/07)
