This is not a Southern thing, as in, “Why bless your heart!” I am not talking about actually blessing our problems. Rather, I realized the other day that most of my problems and worries come from all the blessings I have been given.
I have eight children. While this is a huge blessing and I am very grateful for them, they do come with problems, some more than others! Now that I have two technically adult children, three teenagers, and three elementary age kids, I worry more than ever. It was honestly a lot easier in many ways when they were all younger…at least I knew where they all were all the time. Because of my husband’s job, we also have two houses. I know how that sounds, “Oh poor me,” but when you have two houses it is actually very difficult to remember where your stuff is! The list goes on: I have food, I have clothes, my kids have clothes, I have gone back to school, we homeschool our children, we have jobs and on and on.
I don’t know why, but it all of a sudden struck me the other day that pretty much everything I worry about is a blessing. What a wonderful problem to have! Changing my view just a little, like adjusting a child’s kaleidoscope, makes a HUGE difference.
God thank You for the children to raise and pour my life into. Thank You for the messes they make because they are active, healthy children. Thank You for all of the clothes we get to wash and the shoes we get to pick up and put away—we have more than one pair each. Thank You for the food we are able to buy that makes our kitchen and dishes dirty. Thank You that we all have jobs or a vocation from You. Thank You for the opportunity I have had to go back to school. Thank You for my children’s ability to learn, for some of them it doesn’t come easy, but they have made huge strides.
I know not everyone is blessed in the same way and that so many people in this world have real, terrible problems. Some problems do not stem from blessings, but from the lack of them. So God, I would also pray that I would be generous with the blessings You give me. Besides not turning them into problems or things to worry about, I ask that I would hold them with open, generous hands. That instead of seeing my blessings as problems to be solved, I would see them as gifts to be shared.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” James 1:17
Dear Friend, when are you going to publish your work in a book? Your perspective on the smallest things to the largest is so encouraging and even more so in our current times. I could use the change of perspective daily, not just weekly.
perspective is everything. i love how you shine light on the “problems” to reveal the blessings. the pictures of shoes made me giggle, often when the kids were little we would go on a road trip and get to our destination and my son would have no shoes at all, not on his feet, in the car or in his backpack. The shoes just vaporized on the 4 hour road trip!
Keep writing and teaching dear friend. You truly have an anointing of the Holy Spirit on your words.