On Appreciation

"why speak any more...?

   I have decided"

2 Samuel 19:29

Decisions, decisions...

I'm having trouble deciding what I want to share with you today.  Should I talk about "pitcher's leg syndrome"?

Or Jim Henson?

Or junior high kids and migraines?

Okay, I'm gonna go with Option C.  Those other two will have to wait.

And this isn't a story about junior high kids who have migraines.  It's two separate things. 

First off, you should know that my husband teaches a weekly Bible study for high school kids.  It's through an amazing international organization called Community Bible Study, that my family has been involved with for 15 years.  It's an in-depth study that includes homework, small group time to go over the lesson together, and then a lecture (20 minutes or so) covering that week's material.

So almost every week, from September through May, my sweetie reads and researches and writes, to put together an informative, interesting talk for the kids in his charge.  He spends several hours, all told, over the course of a week.

Of course, he also has a full-time job, and he's a dad and a husband, and an assistant baseball coach... you get the idea.  His work on those lectures is a labor of love, to be sure, but definitely a labor.

This past Sunday night, as he worked to finish his lecture, he was suffering with a migraine.  He took pain relievers, and used an ice pack, and struggled to put the final touches on what he was going to teach the kids.

Finally he said to me, "This isn't working.  I can't think; I can't write... I gotta go to bed and finish it tomorrow morning."  And the next morning, he was up at 5, to finish it up before going to work.  ~ I know, right?  That's why he's the Apple of my Eye.

The next evening I happened to be there when he delivered his lecture.  Our son had a baseball game and had to be a little late to class, so instead of just dropping him off, I came in too.  It was fun to watch my hubby interacting with the kids, asking them questions, referring them to the maps he brought in on powerpoint as he discussed Paul's journey to Rome.

But for a large part of his teaching, there was a junior high girl who was, shall we say, having trouble concentrating.  She was poking and distracting the kids on either side of her for several minutes, and it was driving me crazy.  All I could think of was how hard he worked to finish the lecture, and that she had absolutely no appreciation for what he had done for them.

I finally got up and tapped her on the shoulder, which refocused her, and she sat still for the rest of the time.  But it surprised me how much it bothered me to have my sweetie's efforts treated so lightly.  And naturally I thought about all God has done for me, and how little I care sometimes.  How many times has He done something for me, and I don't even notice?  How often do I neglect to thank Him for my family, my breath, or my salvation?  And of course, what Jesus went through on my behalf.  Nonchalance might be the greatest insult of all.

It's a true statement to say that our praise to Him could never do justice to what He has done ~ and does ~ for us.  But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.  Every day.

~ "Let everything that has breath

  praise the Lord!

     Praise the Lord!" ~

Psalm 150:6

~