A couple of weeks ago, my family was invited to the home of another family at our church for a barbecue. My family consists of two preschoolers while theirs has two teenage girls; not always the best combination for everybody involved; I don't expect a 13 year old and a 15 year old to spend an afternoon taking care of my own children so that I can visit with their parents!

It was with a lot of gratitude that I found this to be exactly how the afternoon unfolded; not only was the ?barbecue? more in the gourmet line, the girls having helped their mother prepare the food, but my wife and I barely saw our son and daughter the whole afternoon ? and that included before mealtime preparation as well!

As any of you with young children know, this is a pretty rare event, so needless to say I felt deeply indebted to both girls and their mother for the wonderful afternoon. The problem was in finding a way to express it; payment was out of the question obviously, but just saying thank you seemed far from adequate. I decided that the best way to go was through thank you cards, so I bought three and gave one to each of the girls and to their parents. I didn't even realize how important these were until a month later, when their mother told me how delighted the recognition made everyone.

I should probably have already realized this, but a thank you card goes a long way toward showing just how appreciated someone or their actions are, and the great thing is that they are perfectly suited to any age; no one is ever ?too cool? or ?too old? to receive one, and odds are that they will remain a keepsake for years to come; I have received a few thank you cards over the years for various things, and I still have them in an old Mandarin orange box in the closet; a few of them include some very encouraging words, and I still take them out and read them from time to time (yes, believe it or not, I am a guy!).

The point is that no matter how old or how young, a thank you card can be a great way to communicate your appreciation for a person, and in many cases they are the most appropriate way to do so. They may even act as a pick me up many days into the future!