Today is Wednesday, March 16th, 2005; Karen's Korner #503

Today is a good day! I have the fun of beginning to give away some of my new devotional booklets, "Always be Thankful". Later this afternoon and early evening, I will begin autographing some of the copies for people who come to the book signing party at our local church.

 

If anyone would like a copy, just ask me for one. I will get them to you. Like all of the others, they are free. If they need to be mailed to you, get me your address, in case I don't already have it. The last couple of booklets I have asked for $1 to cover the cost of mailing the booklets. This time I am asking $2, as they have a few more pages than the last one.

 

Below I have included a portion of the preface on the inside cover of "Always be Thankful":   

 

 

    More than twenty years ago, I served on the Clarion School Board. The days were before open enrollments and additional tax levies which school districts could approve. Clarion was experiencing severe declining enrollments and very few, if any, additional dollars for the upcoming school year.

       After negotiating for teachers’ salaries which was required, and administrators sometimes giving up annual raises which was generous, the board would have the task of giving raises to cooks, janitors, secretaries, and bus drivers. We would talk sometimes about not giving them a raise because of lack of money and because we could make that decision. For the few years I was on the board, we would vote for five- and ten-cent-per-hour wage increase. Not much of a “raise”.

      But each of those years, the Clarion board and administration would receive one thank you note from the number of employees whose lives we were affecting. The note would come from Lee Dahlgren, a janitor, who had gotten one of our less-than-generous salary increases:  thanking us for the opportunity to work for the school and for his raise for the upcoming year and how much he and his family appreciated it.

       Lee passed away several years ago.  I learned a lot from Lee, and I have learned a lot from others in my world about how to “always be thankful”. I thank God for Lee’s and your examples, of teaching me.

        And I thank God for the way that I am, and each of us are, designed:  we aren’t truly happy or content until we learn to be thankful……..always!

 


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