Recently, Steven, our 8½ year old middle child, brought home a daffodil bud from school with instructions from his teacher to cut the bottom off and put it in a vase of water which we promptly did.

Later that evening I could hear the kids in the kitchen “Mom, she’s looking at my flower!” He was referring to Emily, our 5 year old youngest child. I tried to explain to Steven that it was OK for Emily to look at his flower, she wouldn’t hurt it. He said his teacher told the students the flowers might bloom that night and they were as patient as children can be waiting for it to happen.

The flower didn’t bloom until two days later while Steven was at school. As I happened to be passing through the kitchen and noticed it bloomed I thought about the beauty in that little flower. I called to Emily and told her to come and see the flower bloomed. We looked at that flower in awe of its beauty and I thanked God for showing it to me. Then as a mother would do I tried to explain to a five year old to thank God for giving us the beautiful flower. I said “Emily, let’s thank God for giving us this beautiful flower,” and she just looked at me and grinned with some hesitation. I tried to get her to say “Thank you God for giving us this beautiful flower,” but all she could say was that she couldn’t say that. As I couldn’t get her to say it by herself I thought it best to have her repeat after me. Word by word she repeated it without too much trouble. By now she was getting a little bored with this game so off she went to play some more as my last words were “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

I didn’t really think any more of it until later that afternoon.

Some time after Steven arrived home from school I was sitting at the computer working and I could hear the kids in the kitchen again. What caught my attention was Emily proudly saying, “Because Mom said to!” As most mothers would do I had to listen carefully to see what it was that I had said to do, what lesson I had been trying to teach that they finally might have a grasp on. Then I could hear her saying in almost a flippant kind of way, “You’re supposed to thank God for it,” and I realized that she was trying to teach her brother to say those words that were so hard for her to say a few hours earlier.

Of course, I had to go in the kitchen and settle this argument. I tried to explain to Steven how I was so overcome by the thought of God creating this little flower in all its beauty that I wanted to thank Him for it. It made me think then of how often I correct my children to say “thank you” and “please.” If it was so hard to thank Him for something so small, how could we expect to thank Him when it’s not so easy, when things aren’t going well. Yet that’s the time we need to thank Him most.

Take time to practice each day. If you feel like you don’t have anything to thank Him for then start on the little, simple things like the sunset or flowers or a refreshing breeze on a hot day. It will get you in practice to give thanks to God in those more difficult times. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” It doesn’t say for good things, give thanks. It says for everything. When you feel least like saying “Thank you” that’s the time you need to do it most. Thank Him for a lesson you might have learned in the midst of your trial. And remember, there is no circumstance that comes into our lives, from whatever source it comes, that God cannot take by his mighty power and change for our greatest good! (Romans 8:28) Thank you, Lord!