Dear Friends
Welcome to the month of July, named after Julius Caesar, a Roman general, political leader and historian.
During July will be celebrated “Thankyou Day”, an idea started by 13 individuals from different corners of the United Kingdom. It is supported by hundreds of organisations including the NHS and the Royal Voluntary Service, the Sun and The Mirror, the National Citizens Service and the Scouts, UK Music and UK Sport. This support ranges from special promotions and gifts to customers to thank you events in the community.
I have personally learnt to be thankful for many reasons. I am thankful for the gift of each new day. I am thankful for family, friends, community and relatives. I am thankful for my faith. I am thankful for our nation. I am thankful for our ministry in the Parish of the Claydons. I am thankful for last month’s celebration of the Queen’s 70th Platinum Jubilee. In the 5th chapter of James, we are reminded: “those who have reason to be thankful should continually be singing praises to the Lord”. Designating times during the year for special awareness days is always welcomed although remembering to be thankful daily helps.
Letting others know of our thankfulness is a blessing. It costs us nothing yet it can have a huge impact on the lives of others as well as ourselves. For example, can you remember all the people who have benefited your life. Have you ever thanked them? Eventually you might want to thank them all but begin by selecting one and sending a letter of appreciation. I read of a gentleman who wrote not only to his school teacher but also to a bishop, who had been of great spiritual help to him. Although the thanks were belated, this is what the bishop said in his reply: “Your letter was so beautiful, so real, that as I sat reading it in my study, the tears fell from my eyes; tears of gratitude. My wife is now dead; but before I realised what I was doing, I rose from my chair and called her name to show it to her, forgetting for a moment that she was gone. You will never know how much your letter has warmed my spirit. I have been walking about in the glow of it all day long”.
We are invited to “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will in Christ Jesus”, according to the 5th chapter of another bible reading, 1 Thessalonians. Should we wait until the next national awareness day to show our thankfulness? Perhaps not as it is better to be thankful daily. Ministering in many local life events (funerals, weddings and baptisms), I have become keenly aware of how grateful and thankful families have been for the help of others beginning with our local community here across The Claydons, Calvert, Calvert Green, Sandhill and Verney Junction. Can we imagine if we all took the opportunity to contact someone else in our villages to say, “thank you”, what an impact that could be. I believe there would also be a multiplier effect of thankfulness rebounding between families, friends, individuals and sustaining collective respect in our communities. Cesane Pareso said: “We do not remember days, we remember moments”, and such moments would become not just personal memories but historical memories of our villages. That would be amazing.
So, we return to this month’s special awareness day, “Thankyou Day”. Will you mark this day as the beginning of your daily thankfulness? Before I started this ministry vocation, I used to journal my thankfulness against earlier prayer requests. Ticking off answered prayers was a great encouragement and life affirming. I was motivated to maintain my faith and trust in God and that still remains my direction of travel. No doubt if you started journaling yours, you could experience something similar – gratitude for your blessings.
If you would like to share with our community a moment of thankfulness, why don’t you contact me with your story of, say, 50-60 words maximum. We can then make a regular feature in the Parish magazine of sharing a few of these stories monthly as I believe they will be uplifting for the whole of our community. I look forward to hearing from you.
Stay blessed with love
Reverend Rickey Simpson-Gray
Parish of the Claydons
www.theclaydonsparish.org.uk