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Count Your Blessings


Blessings….  The word is a great word.  To be blessed is defined in Webster’s as “Holy; enjoying happiness.”  I can sit and count my blessings, or how I have been blessed and get a big old grin on my face.  At the same time, I can sit here and look at what I am not blessed with, and get more and more angry.  I know a girl who’s mother-in-law doesn’t understand why they choose to live in a small house (that they have no debt in), drive old cars (that they have paid for) and don’t try to “better” their situations.  They are happy with what they have.  This girl on the other hand, can’t see how her mother-in-law can’t be happy with what she has, always has to strive for something bigger and better and always has to be trying for the next best, one up, thing on her list.  Although they love each other, this conflict is something that comes between them.    My mother and my mother-in-law both see blessings as something to be grateful for and relish in all ours, but although my mother-in-law is not like my friend’s, sometimes my heart is like the mother-in-law’s.

Sometimes I find myself asking, “why doesn’t that person try for a promotion?” “Why can’t I get a mini-van (which I have now thanks to my parents)?”  Why doesn’t this or that happen for me when this person has all that happen all the time and doesn’t appreciate it at all…  Then I look at what I said…  I look at the things that happen to me and I don’t appreciate and I am able to start appreciating the things and people in my life. 

I have been all over the place and have seen varying degrees of poverty, helplessness, need.  I have seen people that would travel 2-3 days on foot to get to a hospital to have their children looked at, I have seen homes with no floors, no electricity, no running water yet happy people in them.  I have seen kids that look at your food with longing eyes, beg you for a dollar, just want you to lift them up and throw them around and play with them.  I have been blessed to see a lot of this and can attest to the fact, those kids that you see on the commercials, they are truly that impoverish, that isn’t a set, that is their home.  Even here, in our community, you can go to the homeless shelter or food pantry and volunteer your time and efforts and energy and see just how blessed you are.  It is when you see things like that, and experiences like that, you can realize just HOW blessed you truly are.  Blessings aren’t from money.  Blessings are from joyfulness, and joy is a choice. 

The Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 “Be Joyful (or Rejoice) always, pray continually, and give thanks in all situations for this is the will of Christ Jesus for you.” 

When we pray and are joyful and give thanks in everything – how much better can our lives be?  I know that I have previously blogged on this, and I am sure that I will again – but count your blessings one-by-one, make a list of blessings and look at it when you are down or thinking that you “deserve” something better.  And I pray that each of you will be blessed beyond belief this day!

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