What If I Forgot??

                                          
                       

Dear God,

I have a question. It’s something that’s been on my mind for quite some
time. What if I forgot to say thank-you? What if I was like those nine
men with leprosy in Luke’s Gospel, the nine whom you made clean, but
who didn’t come back to thank you? What if I were like them?

What
if I forgot to say thank-you for the food that you give me to eat? I
haven’t missed a meal, unintentionally, for some 21 years now. I look
into my kitchen cupboards, overflowing with cans and boxes and bags of
food and glibly proclaim that there’s nothing fun to eat, and I
complain. If I forgot to say thank-you, would you see to it that those
cupboards were emptied and that I and my family learned what it means
to be hungry?

What if I forgot to say thank-you for the air that
I breathe, the clean, crisp air of a place that pollution has not
totally destroyed. Would you see to it that I suffocated?

What
if I forgot to say thank-you for water, pure, clean water to quench my
thirst, running out of my kitchen tap on demand. Would you see to it
that I would learn thirst, by making me walk miles to carry water to my
home, water infested with disease and pollution? Would you see to it
that the lakes and streams that I love to fish and swim in would become
cess pools and rivers of sludge?

What if I forgot to say
thank-you, Lord, for warmth. Would you let the furnace die and my house
become an ice-box? Would you let the sun burn out and the world become
a frozen wasteland?

What if I forgot to say thank-you, Lord, for
my house, for a comfortable place to live? Would you see to it that I
and my family were thrown out into the streets, exposed to the elements?

And what if I forgot to say thank-you, Lord, for wild
things… for deer and pheasants, for trout and walleyes, for grouse
and squirrels, for turkeys and songbirds? Would you take them away from
me and make the woods and the waters a desolation, a quiet, lonely,
dead place… if I forgot to say thank-you?

What if I forgot to
say thank-you for the cat and the dog, for the miracle that they are. Would you
take them from me and turn the joyful chaos of my home into a solemn
silence?

What if I
forgot to say thank-you, Lord, for parents who have loved me and raised
me into adulthood with patience and tender perseverance? Would you
erase their memory from me?

What if I forgot to say thank-you
for neighbors who care about me, who watch out for what is mine, who
put up with my failings and accept me for who I am? Would you take me
from them and set me down in a hostile, unfamiliar place, if I forgot
to say thank-you?

Lord, what if I forgot to say thank-you for
this life, with all of its victories and all of its defeats? What if I
forgot to say thank-you for loving me into existence and for watching
over me every day as a mother watches over her babies? Would you erase
my life, take it away from me and erase any memory of my existence?

What
if I forgot to say thank-you for Jesus… for the reality that you
would love me enough to give up everything for me, even your own dear
son? Would you cut me off from you forever, if I forgot to say
thank-you?

No. The answer, of course, is no. You would not
forget me for my thanklessness. No, you continue to shower blessings on
me every day, more blessings than I can begin to number, in spite of
the fact that so often I do forget to say thank-you.

And that,
Lord, is precisely why I owe you my thanks. Today I say “Thank-You,”
even though yesterday I might have forgotten, and tomorrow may again
find me foolishly taking you for granted…. today I do not forget to
say thank-you.