Thank You Note Thursday

Leading up to Thanksgiving, I want to address three threads with my children:  gratitude, God's sovereignty, and the persecuted church.  Given their age, I suspect that we this year will be primarily about gratitude and a bit about God's sovereignty.

Each Thursday in November I plan to help them make random thank you notes.  That is, thank you notes that are not for some specific gift, favor, etc, but spontaneously sent in appreciation of something someone does that often goes overlooked.  This Thursday was, conveniently, Veteran's day, so we were able to kill two birds with one stone.

First, we talked to Big Brother (age 4) about soldiers.  (We had to do a little clarifying as when we initially asked him what soldiers do, his response was that they are bad and mean because they nailed Jesus to the cross.)  My husband sat with him and looked though some pictures on Facebook of friends and family in military uniform, pointing out to him the American flags displayed on their uniforms and discussing all the ways soldiers help keep us safe.

My husband and I precut and folded blue card stock as the base of the cards, cut strips of red and white card stock, and had a supply of foil stars on hand.   With Papa's help, Big Brother went to work.

We made a card for each Grandpa, my brother currently in the military, and a WWII veteran losing his eyesight.  After making the cards, Big Brother dictated a message (written by Papa) thanking each of them for their service and then signed his name.  The final result looked very much like it was made by a four year old (with which I'm perfectly happy).

This coming Thursday we'll make another round of cards with the added challenge of having him decide to whom the cards should be sent and for whom we are making them.  I also plan to include Sis (2 years old) and myself in the next round of card making.

Ephesians 5:20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;