By Olin Brock
The fruit cake taught me to give thanks for all things. You know that cellophane wrapped, rum soaked, candy fruited cake that’s been hiding in a tin can all year, until it was brought out into the light of day and given to me as a gift. I said “Thank you” even though I did not mean it. Guilt welled up inside of me as I envisioned feeding that cake to the garbage disposal. If it had been chocolate cake or carrot cake or any kind of cake with butter cream frosting I would be salivating “Thank you!” over and over, no problem, but fruit cake? It’s easy to give thanks for all the good things, or so it would seem. “Thank you” is one of the primary phrases of good manners. I was taught to say “please” and “thank you” when first learning to talk. Why is it then that so often I forget, or more accurately, neglect to say thank you for the many good things I am given? Is it bad manners, or do I lack an attitude of gratitude? The gift has to be a real whiz banger before I say thank you. If it’s just an ordinary everyday good thing I assume it was meant to be and no expression of gratefulness is needed. The gifts have to get bigger and better for any gratitude to be evident in my attitude. Which brings me back to the fruit cake; if I only say thank you for gifts that I like, is that a judgment of the gift, the one who gave the gift, or of me as the receiver of the gift? The fruit cake showed me that if I only give thanks for gifts that please me, the ones I see as big and wonderful, I am in fact ungrateful, spoiled, shallow, and self centered. The fruit cake probably has a pound or two of preservatives in it to keep it from going bad. The only safe guard I have to keep me from being spoiled rotten is a thankful heart.
If the actions I take don’t match the words I say then I am a hypocrite. That is why I felt guilty for planning the demise of the fruitcake. Flushing it down the drain would prove I was not thankful whatsoever and that I truly did not want that fruit cake. It is so true that actions speak louder than words. When I apply this standard to the precious gifts I have received in my life, I can hardly stand the resulting revelation. My wife is a wonderful gift. She gave herself to me the day we were married and yet so many times I take her for granted. Our children are treasured gifts, but I am painfully aware of missed opportunities to do things with them that I will never be able to get back and do over. Friends are another gift, you can never have too many, and yet, the way I treat my friends sometimes it is a wonder that I have any. What about this body that I live in? If I took care of my car the way I care for my body, it would be a junk heap sitting in the driveway! Yet, I will tell you to your face that good health is something I am truly thankful for. My friend did not give me the fruitcake to send me on a guilt trip. It’s just that giving thanks is connected to being responsible and faithful and dependable. These attributes are part of genuine thankfulness, and anything less is just fooling my self. If I think that just saying “thank you” is enough to cover up my ingratitude then I am …. Yep, you guessed it, NUTTIER THAN A FRUITCAKE!
One other thing I learned from the fruitcake; a gift is given by someone to someone. My friend probably received the fruitcake as a gift last year, and he patiently waited all year long just to give it to me! So, to give thanks I said “thank you” to him personally. What about the many good gifts in my life, the many blessings I have received, who do I say thank you to for all of them? Every good gift comes from the Father in Heaven. Who else? I acknowledge the gift and the giver of the gift when I give thanks. It is impossible to separate the two because gifts don’t just give themselves some one has to take the initiative and be the giver of the gift. For Thanksgiving to have any meaning at all I must say thank you to God, my Heavenly Father, if not for him I wouldn’t have all these gifts in my life, I wouldn’t have anything: “Heavenly Father, thank you for the lesson of the fruitcake, and thank you for all the blessings you put in my life”.
My friend just doesn’t know how much good this fruitcake has done for me. It taught me everything I needed to know to give thanks. I wish that you could be blessed by it as much as I have. How about if I save it for you and give it to you next year? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
