Count Your Blessings

No, you haven’t missed a few months or pulled a Rip Van Winkle, it is still February and Thanksgiving is still in November. So, why am I sharing a graphic about Thanksgiving? Because this post is about blessings and giving thanks.

The old hymn, “count your blessings, name them one by one, count you many blessings see what God has done”, is ringing through my head this morning. The past 2 nights I have had a restless night; waking up, it seemed, every hour on the hour; Friday night I had lower back pain which made it difficult to find a good sleeping position. This morning I woke up stiff and sluggish with a pain in my left side. Seems like my attitude for the past few days has been one of complaining; I hate that! Complaining seems like a big ol’ sin; no not the sin that sends you straight to H E double tooth pick but a sin of the mind; an error that darkens our perspective so we miss the many blessings that are there, even the blessings that the temporary trouble, afflictions or sorrows may bring. It’s so much easier to complain than look for and count our blessings. I signed on to follow a blog a few months ago; the current post on there was interesting but after a few visits I couldn’t take the complaining anymore. I just wanted to scream “get over it”! Or “grow up!” Now, before any of you think that it was your blog, please rest assured it is not! Anyway, a little thanksgiving would go a long way in helping this person see from a better perspective that she is more blessed than she realizes.

We’ve all been given more blessings than we can count and certainly more than we deserve. When my husband was retiring from the Air Force there were no job prospects in sight. At that time we were stationed in Guam, a long way from the US mainland, applying for jobs was not an easy thing. Anyway, during that time I decided to keep a journal of thanksgiving on this matter rather than complaining. We found a few leads on jobs when we returned to the States and followed up on them but nothing worked out. Believe me, I wanted to do nothing but complain and whine but instead I faithfully entered words of thanksgiving in that journal. After a few weeks a job in the area we wanted to live in opened up for my Sweetheart; we’ve been here since that time. I occasionally open that journal and read those prayers of thanksgiving and remember the positive attitude they inspired in me during that difficult and uncertain time. Remembering my blessings and giving thanks kept me from falling into a pit of dismay. Being thankful and counting our blessings takes our eyes off the situations we are in and lifts them to the Father above who is the Giver of blessings. You never know, the difficult time you are in now may be a blessing later down the road. Count your blessings today and see where your heart ends up.


Happy Lord’s Day!
~willa~