Count your blessings every day

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It is Thanksgiving, the day we count our blessings.

Our church has a Thanksgiving service on the eve before. During this service, people often give testimonies for things for which they are thankful. I remember one Thanksgiving service when my boys were very young and my husband had just lost his job because the work was being sent overseas. It was very stressful, but I was trying to be positive and give thanks as everyone around me was doing. I started out with a firm voice but soon dissolved into blubbering about how thankful I was for God’s provision. My husband was back in the nursery, so a friend came up to give me a hug and rescue me. It was one of those times when you just don’t know what you said but hoped you had made sense. I had only meant to give praise, but instead I started a prayer time.

Each of us has so much to be thankful for. Our health, families, homes, food, and clean water are among the first to come to mind. God’s provision, our jobs, our pets, our churches, and our neighbors are others. We live in a great country where so many opportunities abound. I’m thankful to live in the Midwest where folks are friendly and caring. I’m thankful for our policemen, firefighters, EMTs and paramedics, nurses, doctors, dentists, specialists, our stores, the snow removal people, the folks who keep our electricity and gas utilities safe and working, our computer people who keep our machines working so we can work efficiently. The list is endless. Even in times when it seems like the world is crashing in around us, there is something to be thankful for.

The Bible says to give thanks in all circumstances. Sometimes that can be hard. Really. Hard. Yet even in the most difficult circumstances such as the loss of a dearly loved one, we can still say we are thankful through our tears—thankful to have known and loved that person.

Around the world, there are scary situations occurring. In the poorest countries, we find the most generous, loving people. Amid destruction, there is life. During catastrophes, charity pours forth.

Whatever you are going through this Thanksgiving, whether life is bright and beautiful or uncertain and overcast, I hope you’ll stop to count up your blessings. Even in our darkest hour, we have something to be thankful for—if for anything the chance to keep going to make a difference, to do our part to make the world better for our having lived.

God bless you now and always. I’m thankful for you. May blessings shower down on you from heaven this Thanksgiving. Know that you matter and that you are loved. If you are struggling with a trial, this too shall pass. It will. God is walking with you every step of the way. And as the “Footsteps” poem says, sometimes He carries us.

Thanks for stopping by.

Do you have a Thanksgiving memory to share?