After Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, she got up and served everyone. Gratitude usually finds something to do.

Gratitude that stays a feeling tends to evaporate by the evening. When it is real it usually goes looking for something to carry, some way to put your hands on the situation. Getting up and serving everyone is not paying a debt or settling the account. It is what thankfulness does when it has somewhere to go.

When somebody helps you this week, a lift, a cover shift, a bit of money, do one unrequested thing afterwards. Not for them necessarily, and not announced. Clear the table, take the bins out, help the next person who is stuck in the same way you were.