Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is what God wants you to do in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:18
"Why, could it be? Grumpy, is that you!
"Well, does it look like me?"
"Oh, Grumpy, it is you! And what about Sleepy and Happy and . . .?
"Well, if it isn't Snow White. By the looks of your diamond tiara and fur-lined stole, I'm guessing you married a loan shark."
"No, you silly dwarf! I married Prince Charming and I'm living happily ever after."
"So, your name is now . . . Snow Charming?"
She giggled, "Why, yes."
"What a stupid name."
"Actually, I don't mind my name at all. Didn't anyone tell you what happened after I ate the poisoned apple?"
As the bluebirds twittered around them, they sat on a garden bench by a fountain, and the princess told her story.
"One of my old classmates had a crush on me since high school. When he learned that love's first kiss would awaken me, and the breaking of the evil spell would put me in a mood for marriage, he dropped his shovel where he cleaned the village sewers and raced to the cottage where I lay sleeping."
"And?"
"And he was in sight of the cottage when a rider on a white horse thundered past him and beat him there."
"Very nice," said Grumpy, "but I don't see what it has to do with your new name."
"I admit the name Snow Charming took a little while to get used to . . . but . . ."
"But what? That guy who almost beat the prince -- what's his name?"
"Burford Cone."
Marty Radcliff once observed that, if you don't have all the things you want, "be grateful for all you don't have that you don't want."
A forest fire here in Montana swept down from Caribou Creek and burned down ten homes. I talked to several of them afterward as we stood in the ash of their devastated properties.
They all had one striking similarity: they were all grateful it wasn't worse. One was grateful the fire was contained before it destroyed the entire community, another that all the firefighters were safe. The faith of all I talked to gave them a surprising calmness and strength through a difficult time.
God never tells us to give thanks for all things; he tells us to be thankful in all things, because a grateful heart can see the good that can come from anything.
copyright 2017 by Marty Kaarre