Count Your Blessings

This year, at our parish Penance service during Advent, our pastor, who can tend to move things along rather quickly sometimes (oops, did I just say that out loud?), gave the people in attendance a “group penance” rather than individual penance for everyone. It’s a bit unorthodox but still meaningful. Instead of the traditional “2 Our Fathers” or “4 Hail Mary’s”, instead he simply asked us to look at our hands and for each finger, count our blessings. In a way, this is brilliant. Instead of focusing on our sorrow for our sins, it allowed us to turn our attention to all the good things God gives us each and every day.

So, I started thinking about things that most of us take for granted but in reality are true blessings (gifts) from God. Let’s take a look at some of these:

• Did you sleep in a bed last night?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have a roof over your head?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have running water in your home?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Did you take a hot shower today?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Did you flip on a light switch in your home today and filled a room with light?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have family members you have contact with?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Are your parents still around to spend time with?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Did you have a couple of meals yesterday?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have a job, or at least an income?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have eyes to read this blog or see the things around you?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have ears to hear amazing music?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have a mind that allows you to think, remember and make decisions?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Are you breathing right now?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!  
• Do you have hands that allow you to do even the easiest tasks?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have feet that you can walk on and get from one spot to another?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have shoes to put on those feet of yours?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!  
• Do you have a car to drive (even if it is an old one)?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have a television that you can watch for news or entertainment?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have clean clothes to put on each day?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have friends to gather with?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!

(a couple just for animal lovers)

• Do you have a dog that loves to play or gets excited when you walk in the door?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!
• Do you have a cat that likes to sit on your lap and get petted?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!

There’s probably hundreds more that I could list here or better yet, there’s probably more that you may have thought of just while you were reading that list. That’s what’s so awesome about counting our blessings. We take time to see just how blessed we are with the simplest of things. And no matter how many we count, there’s always more.

You see, that’s what God wants us to see in our lives is the blessings, because everything comes from him. But that’s not always easy to do when things aren’t so great. When things go wrong, and the negatives are staring you right in the face and the obstacles seem impossible to overcome, counting blessings can be almost impossible…unless you know how to look at it a little different.

Let me give you a few examples because even in hardship, there are blessings.

• Did you lose your job recently?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS! Your work was done with that job and God has a better job for you. Even if it doesn’t come right away. But he wants you to turn to him and ask him for help.
• Did you get in a car accident?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS! If you survived an automobile accident, your life matters to God and he wants you here for a good reason. Maybe he wants you to ask him to show you why your still here.
• Did your spouse cheat on you or leave you?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS! Maybe that person wasn’t the person God wants you to be with. Ask him to lead you to the person HE wants you to be with.
• Have your children stopped going to church or practicing any kind of faith?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!  This is where God not only wants you to pray for them, he is requiring it from you. St. Monica prayed for her son St. Augustine for 12 years. She is a model of patience and prayer.
• Do you have an illness or disease? Even a terminal disease?      COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!  This is probably the hardest one of all. This is what often causes many to not only give up on God, but simply give up. In reality, this is the one that can bring people closer to God than anything else. In some cases, it may be what even brings someone TO God for the first time! In times like this, we often step up our prayers and pray more and harder than ever before. Why? Because we want a cure. Ultimately, all that prayer is strengthening a relationship with him, which truly is a blessing.

Take a few minutes, and look around you. How many things that you see in front of you now are blessings in your life? When was the last time you said “Thank you God for all the blessings and gifts you give me each and every day?” We are blessed.