Thoughts After Reading “Thank You for Being with Me”

Xuanyan Liu

I like the book, “Thank You for Being with Me”.

The book talks about “a grateful heart” which is a kind of “love”.  Minister Huang distinguished “a grateful heart” into grateful love and caring love. 

There are various kinds of love: parental affection, teacher’s love, friendship, Eros etc.  Each kind of love has positive and negative side, and the author used stories to explain positive and negative parts of grateful love.  The positive story happened 20 years ago in South Vietnam when the country just perished.  Many refugees took ships to leave the country, and after suffering many hardships, they arrived in America and breathed the freedom in the air.  One refugee said, “Everyday is Thanksgiving.”  The Negative story was about Jesus helping 10 people.  After Jesus assisted them, only one person came back to serve him.  Another thing that can present a grateful heart is Christmas.  People give others gifts on Christmas day so that those who receive gifts would feel happy, which makes the givers happy too to just see the smiles.  Receivers would feel like giving gifts to others as well.  This circle to make others happy is how Christmas can be a day to show our gratitude.  However, not only Christmas and Thanksgiving can be the time to express our gratitude.  All other days can show it too, like the way the author did to let readers understand what he meant.