Monday Morning Musing -- Too Many Blessings to Count!

It's been a really (and I do mean really) hot summer...which offers a great opportunity. Go out and sit in the sun for five or ten minutes on one of the days when the thermostat approaches 100 degrees and reflect on hell. You really, really don't want to go there! After that, return to the air conditioned house or apartment and thank God for inspiring men to invent all kinds of wonderful things to make our lives easier and more pleasant. 

Did You Say Thank You Today?

Gratitude: what a wonderful virtue for Advent. 

I was particularly reminded to be grateful this morning when I got up and my husband told me the furnace was out. What a wonderful thing to have central heating. You appreciate it most when it's on the fritz. Thank you, Lord, for all those who developed the wonderful gift of central heating. What a gift not to stoke a fireplace in every room and deal with coal dust and ashes every day. Thank you, Lord!

I'm also increasingly grateful for my joints, particularly since I injured my right shoulder a few weeks ago. I'm right handed so the impact of not being able to raise my arm is significant. Oh, how grateful I am now for all those years when motion wasn't restricted. What a blessing to be able to comb my hair, raise my arm to put on a shirt, and lift dishes into the cupboard - to pick up a little granddaughter and swing her in an arc saying, "Tick-tock, tick-tock." Thank you, Lord.

Will I ever be able to do those things again? The therapist isn't sure and pain is a real tyrant. But think of all those years when movement was fluid and easy and I never gave a thought to the miracle of a ball and joint. Thank you, Lord.

And even pain is a gift, a continuous reminder of all the people in my life who suffer either physically or mentally. Use the sacrifice of my pain, Lord, to help them. Make me grateful to have a small splinter from Your cross to offer for others. Thank you, Lord!

Yes, today and every day I want to give thanks - not just for the big things, but the little things, to breathe thanksgiving all day long with every pulse of my heart. Chesterton said it well:

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

Everything is a grace and a blessing. May we remember that as we wait in anticipation for the greatest blessing of all -- the coming of our Savior.