Thanking Hashem

A friend and I agreed to meet at a neighborhood park this past Shabbos. There, we met her sister and her children. After spending a couple of hours enjoying each other's company, my friend and I started walking home. My friend started talking about her niece and she told me that her development in the past couple of years was a miracle. The girl, as well as her siblings, were born with developmental problems. This girl was in a special needs school for a number of years, but had fully integrated into a regular school this past year. She was functioning at a very high level, both scholastically as well as socially. My friend told me that she attributed the remarkable development of her niece as being due to the special attitude of her sister who thanked Hashem for everything, every step of the way. She told me that her sister, having three special needs children, had every right to complain but she had never heard a word of complaint emanating from her sister's lips. Every little step of improvement was followed by the utterance of praise and thanks to Hashem that the child was able to master a certain skill. My friend stressed how important it was to give thanks to G-d constantly. She related to me how her son had been invited at two different households in Israel for Shavuot meals. He arranged to send flowers to both hosts, before the holiday began. When he arrived at the first household of a poor family, he saw how the flowers occupied a place of prominence and when he returned a week later, the leaves were still in the vase because the hosts couldn't bear to throw the gift away. In the second household, he was dismayed to find the flowers were left unopened, still wrapped and unattended to during the holiday. Needless to say, he bought flowers many times over for the first family. The second family did not receive any more presents from him, because of their initial ingratitude. Let's thank Hashem for all that He does for us. When Hashem sees our gratitude, He will bestow upon us more and more.