The Misplaced Gratitude

By
Melony Chisanga
-
36
655
Dr Humphrey Mutiti

…Making Your Life Count with Dr. Humphrey Mutiti

IN this context, the misplaced gratitude/appreciation means, appreciating someone at the wrong time or place. It means appreciating someone only when they are dead.

It also means talking good about someone only when they are dead. It can also mean doing something good for the dead while you deliberately could not do it for him or her when they were alive. Many of us say giving respect to the dead, the dead that we never respected when they were alive.

Why do we only celebrate the dead? Why not celebrate these people while they are alive? Why do we only talk so nicely about them when they have died? Do we rigorously need to wait for someone to die for us to tell the world how much a blessing he or she had been to us?

In life, there are those people who have helped us to be where we are today. There is no man who is an Island. We are all part of the Island. There is no man who is self-made. We are all part of the main. Some people went the extra mile to give us a job, capital for business, pay our school fees, pay our rent and give us accommodation.

These people had no millions to give us but they gave us their love, knowledge, and opportunities. These people spoke for us; they believed in us and stood with us when no one did. They gave their lives for us and prided in our lives.

Sadly, many of us when we finally made it in life, we forgot the people who piloted us into who we are today. We do not even correlate our lives to them and we acclaim our success to our intelligence and hard work. We shudder our chests for the multiple battles we have overcome to be where we are.

Alas, it is a shame that many of us only remember these people when they are gone. We wait for them to die for us to tell the world that these people were angels in our lives. At their funerals, we give very lengthy speeches and we cry the loudest.

At their funerals, we volunteer to buy them luxurious caskets, new clothes, blankets, and flowers to use when paying the last respect as we put it. We travel long distances to go attend their funerals.

We create time to go for their funerals when we could not do so when they were on earth. We storm social media with pictures and videos of the deceased. We tell the world how good these people were to us and what they meant. Sometimes people even inscribe books about the deceased and make millions of dollars.

People establish foundations (Humphrey Foundation, Levy Mwanawasa Foundation, Nelson Mandela Foundation etc) under the names of the deceased. It is as if one needs to die for him to become a hero, an angel and to be celebrated.

When these people were alive, none of us flooded the media with their pictures, videos and told the world how much they meant to us. None of us bought them groceries or medicines when they were alive. None of us gave them a call to tell them how much we loved and appreciated them. None of us told them how the world would be without them. None of us bought them flowers or a thank you card for being a blessing to us. None of us gave them a phone call just to check on them.

The flowers, messages, and tributes written for the dead would melt our hearts, but the person who would have appreciated them cannot read them. Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones. Thus, it is always better to express how we feel when people are still alive; then the tributes we write when they die would be just a reinforcement of what they already knew. Tomorrow is never promised, so love and appreciate the people who are in your life. Don’t wait for their funerals but do it now while they are alive.

Author: Dr. Humphrey Mutiti is a missionary and church planter in South Africa, called into the ministry of prayer, a conference speaker, with a Diploma is missions, two Ph.Ds. – one in Ministry and the other in Theology.

He is serving as a national overseer and an instructor (South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia for the Great Commission Bible Institute), an author of several books, writes his monthly articles in “The Christ Tabloid” Newspaper in Durban and runs a daily ‘MOMENT OF REFRESHING’ program on Facebook, Instagram, and on WhatsApp.

On the YouTube channel he is running a program ‘Making Your Life Count’, and is currently studying for another Ph.D. in the school of Law. Until now he is the founder and presiding pastor of Covenant Church International.

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