Experienced Blessing Hunter

I look back over the years with more than just a small degree of amazement.  First of all, I am still here.  So many who started the journey are gone.  Their families grieved over the loss of a loved child long before it should have ever happened.  And as the check out clerk said today, "Oh, I am fine.  God woke me up and here I am at work."  What was true for her is true for us each day.  When we wake up, put our feet  on the floor, and walk to wherever we want to go, it is more than just a good day.  It is a blessed day indeed.     

Yet, we often live so much with our eyes on what we think might be better that we miss the simple and ordinary blessings which are coming to us each day.  It is easy to live with the attitude, "Poor me" which excludes the possibility of blessing awareness.  It is easy to look around and see others who simply must be living a better life.  Life is so full of blessings.  Some years ago Ann Voskamp wrote a book entitled "1000 Gifts" which was written around her experience of writing a daily gratitude journal.  And while I lack the discipline of the author, I still work at it and encourage others to follow her example.     

We tend to live such little lives without a genuine sense of gratitude for that which comes to us through divine mercy and grace instead of human effort.  Of course, even being able to exert the human effort is not about us, but about God granting us the strength to pick ourselves up and go forward.   Gratitude is not something to be forced into our lives, instead, it only comes as we become aware of the blessings which are being showered upon us daily.  Some of them are obvious and some seem to hide midst the darkness of the difficulties which are a part of our lives, but the experienced blessing hunter sees them all.  Let us pray for one another that we receive the gift of being an experienced blessing hunter.