I grew up in a poor single-parent family. In fact, were it not for my grandparents, my siblings and I probably would have been a lot worse off. I remember, when I was about ten, waiting up some nights until about ten o’clock for my mother to come home from work to feed us. Dinner would consist of a hamburger, a bowl of chili, and some French fries, which I, my little brother, and my sister would divide among us. I would discover many years later that my mother was giving us her lunch, provided her by the restaurant where she worked. 

I’ve always done everything I could to ensure that my children would never know what that was like; but I also realize that in so doing, they have missed out on a very important lesson: the importance of gratitude. It’s hard to be grateful for something you have always had. If you’ve slept in a warm bed all your life, it’s hard to appreciate a warm bed. If you’ve always had a warm coat in the winter, it’s hard to appreciate a warm coat. And if you’ve never missed a meal, it could be difficult to appreciate eating every day. 

I was reminded of this the other day while making some hot cocoa. I used to drink cocoa occasionally as a child, and I gathered that it must have been expensive, as was milk, because it was something we rarely had. As an adult, too, I rarely drank it: not for economic reasons, but because my children, like their mother, preferred tea. That all changed in 2012, when I tried some cocoa one of my daughter’s classmates gave her a tin of cocoa as a Christmas present. I tried it, and it was great. After I finished the whole tin, I purchased a box of cocoa imported, it said, from Africa. It was very very good. Since then, I average a couple cups of cocoa a week.

My son would never even try cocoa until last year. (He was fed breastmilk until he was around two years old; and later never liked the taste of cow’s milk and wouldn’t drink it.) While passing through Baltimore en route to St. Louis, however, we stopped at Bob Evans for breakfast, and my daughter convinced him to try it. He loved it; and, since then, he now seems to prefer cocoa to tea. So, when I fix myself some cocoa, I’ll usually ask my son if he wants some too; and he usually does. But this day, he declined; because, he said, he wanted to start drinking cocoa less in order to “make it special.” Realizing that my son didn’t have a perfect understanding of the concept of special, which goes hand-in-hand with gratitude, I decided to use cocoa as a teaching point, telling him essentially the following:

A thing doesn’t become special because you do it less: a thing becomes special because you make it special. A wedding anniversary isn’t special because it happens once a year, a wedding anniversary is special because your wedding was special to you, and would still be special if you celebrated it every day. If you appreciate your husband or wife, and are thankful for him or her, then every day you spent with you husband or wife would be special, because it would be one more day you get to spend with him or her.

That Jesus Christ died and shed His blood on the cross for the sins of mankind is not special because He only did it once. It’s special because He did it for us, and He didn’t have to. If we love Him for what He did, then His sacrifice is special to us; if we don’t love Him for what He did, then His sacrifice means nothing to us.

Cocoa is special to me, whether I drink it once a day or once a year, because I choose to make it special. Every time I drink cocoa, I do so knowing that there was a time when someone like me couldn’t drink it. The cocoa bean, used to make chocolate, is grown primarily in parts of Africa, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, and was originally planted and cultivated by Indians, but later exclusively by African slaves. Those slaves never had the pleasure of enjoying the delicious products that resulted from their labors, including hot cocoa. When solid chocolate for making cocoa as a beverage first appeared in London in 1657, it was sold at ten to fifteen shillings a pound (Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1966), which only the wealthy could afford. In America, only in the twentieth century did cocoa became cheap enough for middle class Americans to afford; and today, even someone of little means can buy a cup of cocoa for less than two dollars. 

Vanilla, extracted from the vanilla plant, is a flavoring agent that grows in many of the same regions as cocoa. In fact, vanilla is used in the manufacture of chocolate. It used to be very expensive, but now can be found in virtually every kitchen. Like cocoa, vanilla was planted, cultivated, and harvested by African slaves, and, like cocoa, vanilla was never meant to be enjoyed by those slaves, but was manufactured, marketed and sold by Europeans for Europeans. Sugar, a staple in virtually every household worldwide, has a similar history, as does cinnamon: today one of the most common spices in the world, but at one time coveted by the rich.

I flavor my cocoa with sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and a little coffee (oh yeah!), all of which for hundreds of years were planted, cultivated, and harvested almost exclusively by African slaves, but never intended for them to enjoy. The fact that I can and do enjoy these things, is to me proof positive that there is a God, and that He loves and cares about me so much that He won’t deny me any good thing. And don’t get me started about clothes, shoes, a hair comb, and other things we take for granted.

The Bible says that we should be grateful for all things:

“Giving thanks always for all things unto God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20).

Gratitude is not a natural human trait. It is not natural for us to be thankful for the little things. If it were, then God would not have to command us to be thankful. Gratitude must be taught, and gratitude must be learned. They say that experience is the best teacher, but God doesn’t want us to learn every lesson by personal experience. Sometimes it is better (and less painful) to look to history, and to learn from it. When I drink a cup of cocoa, therefore, I think on my forefathers, and I thank God, knowing that if Satan had his way, I would not be drinking cocoa, and I wouldn’t know enough to be grateful that I am.

“For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

And cocoa is a good thing.:-)

Be encouraged and look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.

TSM
P.S. I also remember that it was my daughter’s cocoa that started the whole thing. Thanks Tete! (Sorry I drank the whole thing.)