Unsaid Thanks, Part 1

Restored (Thanks for having my back James) after a technical glitch ate it.
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Recently, I have been looking back over the relationships I have been blessed to be in. Not universally, but with some consistency, I am finding something disturbing. I don't like what it says about me. I have missed lots of opportunities to give the thanks to people who really deserved it. Now I'm not going to overanalyze why, or dwell on my failure, instead I'm going to take this tread to say a few of the unsaid thanks.

Before I get into it, I am very aware if the dangers of doing a post like this. I'm going to forget someone. I'm going to mess up some of the details. My perspective of the events will be skewed. I'm sorry for each of these things, but I am not going to let that stop me. It is time to say what beforehand has not been said. I'm also going to note, for those people who might try to read something more to what is written, there is no sarcasm here. These thanks are for people who made my life better and I never had the thoughtfulness to tell them before.

1. When I need help, it is my church family that helps me. When my wife is going out with her friends, her girls, it it almost always friends from church she is talking about. When my daughters are invited to a party, it is most often friends from church who have given them the invite. The amount of love my family and I experience everyday is a lot because of our church family. This is not a thanks to them, though. This is a thanks to my parents. First, they lived a life that made it clear the value of having a church family. Second, in spite of the difficulty, they followed God's direction to go to a church better for their kids. Better for me, and the ultimately my family.

For your faithfulness and your example of what it means to be a part of a church family, thank you, Mom and Dad.

2. I would venture to guess that anyone that knows me, knows my love of games. When I walk down the game aisle of a store I can't help but stop and look, letting my imagination run. Every rulebook is a secret code to go to a new place. Most of my friends I met through gaming. One of the things I will regularly do for parties is put together the games. I love it. My life, mostly for the better, has been shaped by games. This might seem dramatic, but games rescued me.

I was a socially awkward child. I wasn't one of the popular kids in school. My friends were the kids my mom babysat. One of these kids, the one to which I owe thanks, was Geoff. Geoff was smart, had great toys and a great house. More importantly, Geoff was a gamer. He played computer, roleplaying and console games and these became a bridge for the two of us to be friends. He taught me how to play a large selection of games, then we would sit and play those games together. It didn't seem to matter I wasn't one of the cool kids when I played games. From him I learned the power of games, of teaching people games and of giving someone an opportunity to be something else for a while.

For befriending this socially awkward kid and introducing him to something that would help him make friends for the rest of his life, thank you Geoff.


To be continued.