Thank You for Caring

Becoming the man I ought to be

if I were to take a moment and look back through my childhood, there would be an easy observation I see now, that I was oblivious to then…  I’d be impressed by the men and women that surrounded me, and saddened by the actions I had for years.
I know that’s a rather vague statement, but it’ll become more clear as I continue through this blog post.
My parents made the choice to home school me as a child, raise in the way they saw fit and develop my worldview in the way they believed was correct.  I am the man I am today, because of their actions.  But… I’m willing to bet… I never said thank you for that.  You may be thinking, “we don’t say thank you for education or simple necessities of life…”  Why not?  Why is it so easy to say thank you for passing that mashed potato’s, and so challenging to say thank you for influencing my life in a dramatic way?

 

Photo Credit: Unknown

Brian Czock, Brian Vaughan, Lane Chandler, Harding Family, Dick Sheehan, Mike Miller, Jonathan Stone, I can go on an on with the men and women who have stepped out from the crowd and made a difference (I apologize, I don’t have room for all the names).  I’m sure you also have friends that created you to be who you now are.  When I look at these people, I realize i never said “thank you for taking me to lunch!”  Not even thank you for just the positive things, but the seemingly negative (but actually positive) things as well!  The time you yelled at me, not because you were angry… but because you saw me do something that was less than the man you knew I could be.  You yelled at me and it showed me that I wasn’t stepping up to the character YOU knew I had… you showed me how to grow.

We need to learn how to say thank you for the hard things!

In the Bible, I have no idea where, there is a story of several men who have been blessed by Jesus Christ.  They leave, overjoyed and celebrating the action that Christ had done… Only one… only one of these men ran back to Jesus and said Thank You, thank you for doing that.  That’s our world, that’s where we dwell and where we grow up.  Sure, continue to say thank you for passing the potato’s, or for the drive… obviously I believe that’s a good thing!  But learn to say thank you for the challenging things, the aspects of life that truly change who you are as a person and who you’ll become.

I am just as guilty as the next guy, rarely saying thank you for the things that genuinely matter and influence me.  This post is to show people that we’ve dropped the ball on thank you’s, but also this post IS a thank you to each person reading this.  I write for my own joy, a way of releasing my emotions and thoughts onto a digital piece of paper. But you, the ones reading this, have made it much more for me.  From the compliments or comments, you’ve shown me that my joy for writing is not wasted or poor in nature.  You’ve brought joy to my heart and a pride in my writing.  Most of all, you’ve influenced my life.

Step out of the comfort zone we dwell in, and say thank you for the actions of others.
without the men and women that have helped raise me I wouldn’t be who I am now.
Thank you to the strangers of this world who influence me positively…
thank you to the spiritual “aunts” and “uncles” that have raised me as their son…
I am the man I am today, because of their actions.