When you don’t feel appreciated …

This past Sunday, both Brian and I received a bag of cards and letters from the congregation. Over the afternoon, I delighted in reading the heart felt sentiments expressed in those notes. Some made me laugh and few brought a tear to my eye. This was already on top of a few small gifts others had brought into the church. I cannot thank you enough for the kindness you expressed to me. It encourages me and motivates me to serve the people I love even better.

I have friends who work in other environment where they are not appreciated. They work long and hard hours. These are folks who don’t want to go through the motions of doing their jobs. Most even put forth the effort to sacrifice their personal time in order to serve their fellow employees, employers and general public, but they never hear a thank you. It’s deflating. In fact, you can begin to resent the very people you want to serve because they never recognize the hard work. The people they work for do not make their jobs a joy.

I hope that we have not done that with our public officials- particularly our fire fighters and law enforcement. Through the Madison County Chaplain corps we have an opportunity to demonstrate our appreciation to these brave men and women. They are collecting items to give small gift bags to distribute to those who serve us in the community. These are small contributions such as tissue, gum, chapstick, hand-warmers, mints and candy. The final collection day is this Sunday. Let’s join together and show our appreciation for those that serve us so well.