Thankful

The manager of a Minnesota store was surprised to come back from lunch to find his counterhelp walking around in her socks. That’s because security camera footage revealed she had just given her favorite shoes, a pair of purple retro Jordans, to a homeless man she saw strapping boxes to his feet. Employee Ta Leia Thomas, known locally as “Ace” said the split-second act of kindness “was an easy decision.”

Thomas said, “He said nobody would ever give me shoes like that. and I said, ‘Well, I’m not everybody. I was always taught to help others. You never know what their problem is, or what they are going through.’”

Manager Tom Agnes said that even before the generous act, he wished he had 12 Aces on his team, such is her work ethic and joyful connection with customers. Agnes bought her a fresh pair of kicks before her shift was over, after which he shared the security camera footage on social media.

Thomas has been overwhelmed by the comments of love and appreciation, which quickly grew all the more intense after Agnes and a few friends in the industry came together to raise $450 for Thomas to buy another pair of purple Jordans.

Now after becoming a little bit more attentive to Ace’s life, Agnes learned that she is the sole caretaker of her mother, who sleeps in Ace’s bed while Ace sleeps on the floor. In the end he just gave her the cash rather than the shoes to buy a second bed.

You can watch the act of kindness here.

Nadia Popovici kept shifting her eyes from the hockey game to the back of Brian Hamilton’s neck. Mr. Hamilton, an assistant equipment manager for the Vancouver Canucks, had a small mole there. It was irregularly shaped and red-brown in color — possible characteristics of skin cancer. Nadia had served at hospitals as a nursing assistant.

“I need to tell him,” Nadia told her parents at the NHL game in Seattle. So, she typed a message on her cell phone and waited for the game to end. After waving several times, she finally drew Mr. Hamilton’s attention, and placed her phone against the plexiglass. Her message read: “The mole on the back of your neck is possibly cancerous. Please go see a doctor!” with the words “mole,” “cancer” and “doctor” colored bright red.

Hamilton said he looked at the message, rubbed the back of his neck and kept walking, thinking, “Well, that’s weird.” Nadia said she regretted the message and thought at the time, “Maybe that was inappropriate of me to bring up.”

After the game, Hamilton talked to his doctor, had it removed, and had a biopsy. Nadia was correct. It was type-2 malignant melanoma, and she had just saved his life. Hamilton said, “She took me out of a slow fire, and the words out of the doctor’s mouth were if I ignored that for four to five years, I wouldn’t be here.”

Then Hamilton tried to find his “hero” by posting a message on the team’s Twitter that said: “To this woman I am trying to find, you changed my life, and now I want to find you to say THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! Problem is, I don’t know who you are or where you are from.” Three hours later they found Nadia. After Hamilton expressed his gratitude, the team gave her a sweet gift—a $10,000 scholarship to use for medical school expenses.

In July of 2021, The New York Times ran a special 55-page section about the 2.5 million essential service workers who kept New York City alive while many New Yorkers worked remotely. One of the heroes of the story was Gustavo Ajeche, a 2004 immigrant from Guatemala.

By day Gustavo works construction. At night he delivers food for restaurants in the Financial District. His wife works as a nanny for a family in Manhattan. This job became a live-in position when her employer had her accompany them to their second home in North Carolina from March through September last year. Gustavo and his wife do not have a second house, but they do have a second extended family to support back home in Guatemala. Their jobs often get little or no recognition or praise.

But at the end of the article Gustavo said, “The pandemic was hard, but it taught me I can help. I would come home exhausted, but hearing ‘gracias” or ‘God bless you,’ that was beautiful. I’ll never forget my roots in Guatemala. I struggled for my community. But I feel like a real New Yorker now.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

(1) The gospel tells us that through Jesus Christ we can hear God the Father’s “well done” on our life’s work. (2) Showing appreciation to others.

God looked with delight upon his handiwork at the end of each day of creation having found it good. Part of what it means for us to be created in God's image is to possess a natural appreciation for beauty and the urge to celebrate it and its source.

Anyone who doubts this need only visit the pier at Mallory Square in Key West, Florida around sunset. Tourists from the world over line the railing there each day and watch reverently as the sun sinks silently into the western horizon. In its fading rays a spontaneous response ensues--clapping!

Beholding once this ritual with my own eyes, I couldn't help but wonder. For whom do they think they're clapping?

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) As a Thanksgiving illustration this reveals mankind's universal inclination to give thanks; 2) The incongruity of recognizing the beauty in God's handiwork but denying his existence (Rom. 1).

Saul and Keon have never missed a day of work picking up trash in Miami Beach. They’re especially glad they were covering their route this week as a beautiful surprise awaited them. When their huge truck rolled down the street into the community, they found scores of residents who’d gotten up early to line the street with signs and balloons, all to simply say “We love you.”

Jennifer Elegant wanted to show her family’s appreciation so she organized the socially-distanced surprise thank you celebration to honor the essential workers whom she called “extraordinary.” “They bring an incredible, positive energy to the entire neighborhood. Simply put, they spread joy.” Even the Miami Beach mayor, Dan Gelber, showed up to salute them—because Saul and Keon do so much more than pick up trash.

Jennifer went on to say, “What is particularly special about these two men is the positive energy that they bring with them. They always have smiles on their faces and never miss an opportunity to say hello and brighten someone’s day. They also go out of their way to help others and expect nothing in return.”

One day, Saul spent 45 minutes helping a neighbor dig through her trash to help her look for her lost wedding ring. He also waited over an hour with another neighbor who was having heart issues and needed an ambulance.

Jennifer has had “meaningful discussions” with these amazing sanitation workers about their inspiring levels of happiness. She said, “They continue to maintain their upbeat demeanor even during this stressful COVID-19 pandemic, sacrificing their own safety in order to keep our city clean and beautiful. Every day we are surrounded by heroes who bring us inspiration and joy but too often we are unable to recognize these special individuals for the impact they make on others. I wanted Saul and Keon to know that we are thankful from the bottom of our hearts.”

Actor Shia LaBeouf had a surprising shout-out during his acceptance speech at the Hollywood Film Awards. LaBeouf won the Hollywood Breakthrough Award for his film Honey Boy, which he wrote and directed, based on his history as a child star. As a mea culpa for his previous bad behavior, LaBeouf included the following acknowledgement: “I want to thank the police officer who arrested me in Georgia for changing my life,” said LaBeouf. “[and] my therapist and my sponsor for saving my life.”

He was referring to an incident in 2017 where he was arrested for public drunkenness in Savannah, Ga. Paparazzi caught footage of him lashing out at officers with a lewd, profanity-laced tirade. In an interview with Esquire, he was frank about his response:

“What went on in Georgia was mortifying. White privilege and desperation and disaster… It came from a place of self-centered delusion … It was me trying to absolve myself of guilt for getting arrested.”

According to LaBeouf, the fallout from the arrest drove him to pursue sobriety more seriously, which drove him to seek help for his addictions.

Possible Preaching Angles: It's a mark of maturity to not only appreciate discipline, but to take time to give thanks for it, because the discipline of God is not proof of God's disdain for us, but of His love for us.

Research has shown that practicing gratitude boosts the immune system, bolsters resilience to stress, lowers depression, increases feelings of energy, determination, and strength, and even helps you sleep better at night.

In fact, few things have been more repeatedly and empirically vetted than the connection between gratitude and overall happiness and well-being.

In a survey done by Kaplan, she found that while “more than 90% of people think gratitude makes you happier and gives you a more fulfilled life ... less than half regularly express gratitude.”

A woman who was abandoned as an infant turned to Facebook to find the people who rescued her. In January 1983, Amanda Jones says one of her birth parents wrapped her in a blanket and left her inside a dumpster near the Prado Business Mall in Atlanta. Three months later, Jones was in foster care, and was eventually adopted. Now, Jones has launched a campaign to find the people who helped change her life. “I want to thank whoever found me because they changed so many lives by being in the right place at the right time.”

After tracking down the police report from the day she was found, Jones contacted Joyce Vaughn, the now-retired detective that handled the case. Jones said, “After I spoke to Joyce and I felt like I had a new heart. I felt like there was a weight lifting off me after 36 years, to know these stories.”

Her Facebook appeals led her to two of the paramedics who transported her to the hospital. Jones said, “Knowing that they held me and warmed me, it makes me feel really good.” By sharing each meaningful contact, Jones has high hopes that she will eventually reach her rescuer.

Jones said, “(If those) people … hadn't found me, my children wouldn't be here today. My husband wouldn't have a wife. So, it is such a blessing to all of us. So many people have been blessed by that one night and one person.”

Potential Preaching Angles: Even brief acts of heroic kindness can reverberate for decades. God loves someone who does good away from the cameras, without seeking recognition or acclaim.

The modern world has had far too little understanding of the art of keeping young. Its notion of progress has been to pile one thing on top of another, without caring if each thing was crushed in turn. People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it. And by crowding things together they lost the sense of surprise; and surprise is the secret of joy.

Prayer is not simply to get things from God, but to make those things holy which already have been received from Him. It is not merely to get a blessing, but also to be able to give a blessing.

Prayer makes common things holy and secular things sacred. It receives things from God with thanksgiving and hallows them with thankful hearts and devoted service.

Gratitude is from the same root word as "grace," which signifies the free and boundless mercy of God. Thanksgiving is from the same root work as "think," so that to think is to thank.