Guest Author - Michelle Pendergrass

This morning, I was going to write a post for my personal blog venting about helping people who are ungrateful. Or doing things for people who seemed ungrateful. Or any combination of the above.

I wanted to rant about how I always go out of my way to help people, whether they're family, friends, or strangers, I'm always looking out for everyone else and it is a drain both physically and emotionally.

I wanted to say how upset I was that I did this or that and went out of my way for something else and didn't get a thank you. I wanted to say how much thought I put into the thing I was doing hoping the receiver would truly appreciate what I did. Not that I needed the glory, that's not it. I don't want to be put on a pedestal or treated special. I just figured a "Thanks" or something short and sweet would be good. But I didn't get it and I was disappointed.

So I wanted to write about that disappointment.

Then I took a nap instead of writing something I might regret.

I woke up to find a very special email from a friend I didn't even know I helped. I had received an email from this friend and I replied to it. I thought I rambled on like a babbling fool and said as much to my friend. Little did I know, my friend had been making plans to talk in person with other friends and things like work and snow and ice storms kept postponing the meetings until my friend spilled the concerns of the situation on the email to me, I answered, like I said, I thought I did more harm than good by my incessant babbling. However, God's plan was quite different.

God planned for my friend to tell me everything, planned for me to run my ever-loving mouth, and planned for my friend to receive the message that could only come from me.

But wait, there's more.

Today, my friend emailed me again telling me how the pastor, on Sunday, said something like this: "There are times when we're at the end of our ropes, suffering through our personal Dark Night of the Soul, and it's these times when God will speak to us directly. He doesn't use a burning bush anymore, but he'll tell us what he wants to say somehow, usually through other people, via a phone call or an email from a friend."

Don't give up helping other people. Even if they aren't grateful, God is still using you in a big way.