The note, written in a child's hand, read, "Dear Dr. Stidger, Thank you very much for the retainer. My dad told me how thankful I should be and I am. I did not really want a retainer, but I know it will help me and make my teeth grow straight. My dad told me to take very good care of it. This gift is the biggest gift I have ever got, and it probably will be the biggest gift I ever do get. Love, Bethel."

Often we are grateful, but generally don't take time to express our gratitude as Bethel did, or we just assume that someone knows. Dr. William Stidger and a group of friends were commenting on how terrible the economy was and how grim things were in the world. "There isn't much to be thankful for," one of them remarked. Stidger showed them the note Bethel wrote and, after a moment, he added slowly and thoughtfully, "Well, I'm grateful to Mrs. Wendt."

And who was Mrs. Wendt? A schoolteacher who 30 years before had gone out of her way to encourage him in his studies. As they chatted, someone inquired, "Did you ever thank her?" Stidger admitted he often thought about it, but never had.

That evening when his guests left, he sat down and wrote the letter he had thought about for many years. A few weeks later, he received a reply.

Written in the shaky hand of an aged person, it read: "My dear Willie: I want you to know what your note meant to me. 1 am an old lady in my 80s, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely and seeming like the last leaf on the tree. You will be interested to know, Willie, that I taught school for fifty years and in all that time yours is the first letter of appreciation I have ever received. It came on a blue, cold morning and it cheered my lonely old heart as nothing has cheered me in many years."

To whom do you owe gratitude—teachers, parents, business mentors, neighbors, Sunday School teachers, friends? No one is self-made. You are where you are because someone, somewhere, helped you. "In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you."