How You Say Thank You

Why does God put such a competitive spirit in some of us? I love sports, and competition! I don't usually turn down a good home cooked meal, a Holy Ghost moved church service, or a friendly game of whatever between whomever!

I was invited to a basketball game last fall by a dear family friend, and I just couldn't say no. Great energy, and free admission, heck yeah, I'm in! Well our friends daughter played a great game, and we had a blast watching! Makes me want to get back out there myself sometimes, but other than that, a really good time. Well after the game and the congratulatories this young ladies mother said, "Tell him thank you for coming!"


It is always a blessing to get an invitation from people you care about, and even better to know that you received the invitation because they cared for you in the first place. So, after the basketball season was over, I received yet another invitation. This time it was to go hang out and just have a good time. Then this year an invitation to go on a picnic, where we started with a beautiful sunny day, and wound up with winter in May! Our dogs didn't exactly get along so things heated up for them, but as for the up right two legged gang we built a massive fire, and the smoke was horrible! 6,000 plus feet above sea level, and went from mid 70's to mid 50's in what felt like just a few clouds and even less minutes!

You've seen the commercials:

6,684 above sea level on a beautiful scenic mountain top:
Fleece pull over: $10 (great gift from an even better friend and on sale at Old Navy 9 years ago!)
Couple of pounds of hamburger meat: $5
Pack of hotdogs: $3
Ingridients to make smores: $3
Friends that will share all this with you while sporting snotty noses and smiles on their faces: Priceless!


I was invited to watch the baseball games, and was the biggest mouth in the stands! Yet she kept asking me to come back! Really... to have someone think enough of you to ask you to come to something that means something to them, well that is a top notch honor in my book!

Today the same young lady and her mother asked my family to join them on another trip. Today we went to the water park. What a blast! It started out super hot, and the water freezing! I let my hair down and hit it! The water was so cold it made my curls stand! Kids running everywhere and adults chasing them. What a great sight. I ran into more old friends, and made new ones. It was a fabulous day!

There was a scare, but it was just a scare, and we managed it with care, and things were fine. The young lady that had been inviting me to her games dove off of the spring board, and did a back flop. Everyone anywhere near heard the smack. She came up slow, and said, "I can't breathe help me." But she never paniced! Tough as nails and twice as pretty! I jumped in and grabbed her, rolled her onto my hip, put my hand under her under arm, and used a side stroke to get her back to shore. She stood up, and had a ginormous red splotch on her entire back! We were blessed that she seemed to only have a slight scare from the pain, and from getting the wind knocked out of her. She rested a bit, and we made our way home a several minutes later. We will now make an attempt to church together in the morning, so I had better shut down.

To conclude I can only say that the invitations are how you say thank you.

When you, and I brother/sister imperfect Christian, but being perfected in and by Christ daily, mature, and pray and invite Him (Christ) into our hearts, and we get that warm fuzzy feelin' inside that's Jesus saying, "thanks for the invitation here's an eternal one in return, and oh yeah you're welcome!"