My Life Rhapsody

I am blessed

Thought I'd take some time to count my many blessings, naming them one by one.

1. I am so thankful for Jesus Christ who died for me and who, by His Holy Spirit, enables me to live and grow each day.

2. I am absolutely blessed with a wonderful husband. So many women complain about their husbands doing or not doing this or that. My husband is wonderful and he is a dear friend. I truly know him and he knows me. We share a great friendship and are blessed to agree on those things we value and hold most dear. He is a responsible provider for our family and he also works so hard around our home on remodeling and home improvement projects. Not to mention, he's a fabulous father! I'll stop now... clearly, I could go on and on!

3. My 4-year-old DD is a blessing and helper to me. Today has been a good day so far, with good attitudes. She's helped me bake banana bread, play with some math manipulative rods, and we scrubbed our kitchen and bathroom floors on our hands and knees. All of this she thought was great fun, while I thought we were getting things done!  To rediscover the world through a child's eyes is so refreshing and makes mothering rewarding.

4. My church family is a blessing to me as well. It was only about 4 years ago that we moved to this area and had doubts about whether we would stay with our church or shop for another. It's hard to believe how much we've grown to love the people and the ministry there in the years since we decided to stay. I'm the part-time (very part-time) secretary at the church, I'm involved in the Outreach ministries and my husband coordinates the media ministry (powerpoint-type programs handling song lyrics and announcements on the screen upfront). When the church is open, we're there. And we're blessed by serving in numerous ways there.

5. My DH's family all live nearby and his parents watch my DD for one morning each week. Although sometimes it's both a blessing and a curse to live so close to family, there are many ways that his parents help us out. For instance, his mother is a packrat. But this works out to benefit us in the sense that she has saved all of her grandchildren's clothes since birth. Her oldest grandchild is now around 12. So far she's had all granddaughters. So my 4 year old has never had a want of clothes. When she's hit a growth spurt, we head to grandma's and pick up the next size up clothes box (or usually, boxes) and bring them home for a fashion show  Sometimes the pack-rat tendancy drives us nuts, but at least in terms of clothes, it's saved us hundreds of dollars over the years as we have very rarely ever had to buy DD any clothes except special things for special occasions.

6. Our house is a blessing to me. Although our house is probably average size and is older, there are many benefits. When we first moved in, my husband remodeled the kitchen and bathroom and laundry room. I was without a real kitchen (and a kitchen sink!) for one year.... with a baby! We had a "pretend" kitchen set up in the living room with a microwave, an electric skillet and a toaster oven. This is what I cooked witih for a year! And I did my dishes in the bathtub. LET ME TELL YOU... I appreciate my kitchen! It's a beautiful kitchen now and I often recall those days without and they make me appreciate all that I have. The laundry room took nearly 3 years to complete. And we did our laundry at the in-laws home. So again, I've never been so anxious to do laundry as I was the day we got our laundry set up and functioning!  All of this remodeling also made me appreciate how women used to "keep their home" and the work it must have entailed before we had so many wonderful conveniences. How truly blessed we are!

My time has run out. I have so much to be thankful for. What a good God we have and what a high calling as mothers to teach our children to be thankful. Yet another reason I am glad that we do not own a TV is that of the exposure to greed that is behind almost every commercial. Every commercial out there is aimed at making the viewer want something. As much as we can mute the TV or recognize that a commercial is silly or dumb, it is nonetheless teaching that greedy, I need more attitude. I am so glad that we can avoid it from at least one venue. We're greedy and selfish enough without feeding that monster within.

Blessings to you. Take a minute to write out some of your blessings and improve your outlook on the day!