I listened for it but could not hear it. It just wasn't there. A radio news report during the Thanksgiving Weekend featured a number of people, young and old, rhyming off a list of things they were thankful "for". What I was waiting to hear was mention of being thankful "to", as in "to whom"? Gratitude arises from an awareness that I have received something from another. Thankfulness is therefore expressed toward the giver; it is a matter not only of being thankful "for" but also thankful "to". Why was this natural and all-important preposition absent?
St. Paul asks this arresting question: "What do you have that you did not receive?" (1Corinthians 4:7). In other words, all in life is gift, and the giver is God, who loves us beyond all imagining and who never fails to give his children what is good. So powerful is this love of God that it can transform even what is bad into the gift of something good. This is what Jesus did when he took pain, suffering and death upon himself and transformed it, through his resurrection, into the gift of eternal life. That little word "to" is of immense importance. It directs our attention - and our gratitude - toward the source of the gift, who is God.
The absence of this preposition in common discourse is perhaps a sign of the need to welcome God back into our lives. Of course, it is good to be thankful "for", but at the same time I really ought to direct my thanks to the One whose love is the foundation of all good things, even life itself. To forget this is to lose sight of the foundation of real hope.
