Counting Your Blessings

How often do you count your blessings? I mean really stop to add them up? As in, pull-out-your-pen-from-the-black-hole-that-is-your-purse, find a clean napkin and start tallying them up? From the elephant-sized miracles to the most minuscule Godsend, so completely tiny that it could be lost within the grains of a sandy beach.  Ironically, for many of us, we can respond with lightning speed when asked to point out the things that are missing in our lives. Our wants. Our desires. What’s “absent”. But when it comes to creating a list of our blessings? And adding them all up in appreciation. We tend to stutter.

For me, living with more purposeful gratitude hasn’t come without some baggage…

I had hit a point in my life…in the depths of some serious post-partum trenches…when my own anxieties had reached unprecedented heights (or in the literal sense, lows), and I found myself existing in my day-to-day routines simply by waiting for the next “bad thing” to happen. The next struggle. The next heartache. The next bout of tears. Of course there were c.o.u.n.t.l.e.s.s. acts, people, things, and miracles for which I was thankful. Beyond thankful. But I wasn’t making “being grateful” for them a priority. It took some serious self-redirection, heaps of amazing support and an “epiphany” of sorts to place this struggling momma back on track. Into a life of faith, and out of an existence of fear.

When you make gratitude a daily practice in your life, it becomes more intentional. Deliberate. Filling your day with meaning. Becoming purposefully grateful is a process. It requires an energy shift. From constantly focusing on the negative. The “every-little-things-going-wrong” within the walls of sunrise and sunset. To showing praise for the simplest pleasures.

And that is what I feel has become my specialty…stumbling upon the most modest blessings of the day and taking a moment to appreciate them. The act. The merriement. The turn of luck.

The…

~”thank-you-Jesus”-for-the-green-light moments

~you-can-stop-holding-your-breath; she’s-finally-asleep moments

~warm-jeans-fresh-out-of-the-dryer moments

~last-slice-of-cake-is-all-yours moments

Please don’t get me wrong. When those “big” blessings shower down in my life, you better believe those are the knee-hitting occasions. With eyes closed. And hands folded. But those are the easy ones to appreciate. To celebrate. It’s the tiny festivities that we really need to value the most. And our thanks doesn’t have to be a big production. No, dear friend. It’s as simple as a whisper that the can be carried away with the afternoon breeze; a humble, “Thank you dear, Lord” is more than enough. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from this journey, it’s not contentment that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us content. Fulfilled. And living life as richly as possible.

This post is part of a link-up with ember grey!