Have you ever woke up on the wrong side of the bed and felt that no matter what you did, nothing seemed to go your way? I recently had one of those days. And to top off this terrible day, I foolishly made lima beans for dinner, since last week my children claimed to love them. Apparently this week they decided that they no longer liked them! As I was sitting there, telling my kids to be grateful that they had food to eat, my mind started to wander and I was reminded of a good story that has lima beans in it – “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day.” And wouldn’t ya know it, that was exactly how I felt!!

Everyone has “one of those days.” I wanted my kids to understand that while there are things that may not go our way, we must thank God for what we DO have. Since it’s close to Thanksgiving, I thought this would be the perfect time of year to share this story and lesson with you!

To teach this lesson, I got the book, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day.” If you don’t have it, you can find some videos on YouTube of people reading it.

After reading I asked my children if they ever felt like Alexander. They said, “no.” lol! But then I redirected them to things that have happened that they were not happy about, such as, being served lima beans for dinner, not getting what they want at the store, fighting over who gets to sit next to their cousin in the car, etc.

Next we discussed what we can do when we have these types of days. We can pray to God to help us through our trials, but even more encouraging is to think about how God has helped us in the past. We need to keep our minds focused on the greatness of God and look for the blessings in everything that we have.

We looked through the “bad” events in the book and thought of ways to find something good to thank God for. Examples:

1. Lima Beans – Alexander doesn’t like lima beans but can thank God that he has food.
2. Shoes – The shoes Alexander wanted were out of stock at the store – He can thank God that he has shoes to wear.
3. Carpool – Alexander didn’t get a window seat and was squished in the car, but he can thank God that he has a car to ride in.
4. Dentist – Alexander had a cavity. He can thank God that his mom took him to a dentist and can get it fixed before it turned into a bigger problem.

For the first few examples I had to direct the conversation, but after a couple of examples they were able to think of examples on their own.

A Thankful Box

In college one of my housemates had made us all a drawstring bag to put things in it that will remind us of when God was faithful. She told us to take it out and look at the items inside when we needed encouragement. She called it an Ebenezer bag which is a reference to 1 Samuel 7. In this passage, the Israelites were saved from the Philistines. Samuel set a stone in the place as a reminder of how God had helped them. “He named it Ebenezer (stone of help), saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.'” (1 Samuel 7:12).

We all have things in our lives that we may take for granted. And when you have “one of those days,” what do you do? It’s easy to say that it’s not fair or why me. But we have to focus on what is good. Focus on how grateful we are that God has helped us out in the past. Then it helps us change our feelings from despair to hope.

Instead of a bag, you can have children decorate a box to keep their Ebenezer’s in it. This activity can be used with any grade. A fun thing to do is to have the whole class write a compliment on a piece of paper to each student in the class. We did this at camp with our senior girls. I told them to keep it tucked away somewhere and when they needed encouragement to take it out and read it. I still have those notes and it always puts a smile on my face when I read them.

What will be in your Ebenezer box?

Kristina