When was the last time you counted your blessings?

 “In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love. 

Life sometimes makes it hard for us to pause and remember how blessed we are. There seems to be an endless list of what we need and what we want and what needs to be done and what we wish we had not done. Some, like me are worry-ors; we worry about any and everything, reciting our what ifs and if onlys like the hymns at morning mass. We are quick to talk about how stressed we are; stressed at the job, stressed because of no job, stressed at home, stressed at the lack of a home, stressed because of the bills we have had to pay and the ones we are yet to pay, the list could go on.

I find myself doing this and more and even though in my prayers morning and night I thank God for his mercies, provision and love, I still find that in order to be inwardly thankful I need to reflect and make a conscious decision to do so, not just by saying 'Thank you, God' but by actually and sincerely being in a state of thankfulness. In the month of April, a lot has happened that has caused me to stop and reflect on the many ways in which I have benefited from God's mercies and faithfulness and even as I write, the ways in which He is still faithful to me despite my unfaithfulness and sin and I am moved to give thanks to Him. Not the regular type thank you that I mutter repeatedly in my prayers, but the sincere deep seated gratitude that comes from the days when He has shown up for me when I least expected and for His love.

But most of all I am thankful for the things I might often or not take for granted; like the love and care of family, my children, who even though they wear me out taking care of them sometimes, are the reason for my smile and my desire to do more, my hubby, who has been my rock and side-kick and my mother, whose prayers have fortified me and prepared me for the storms and tests of life.

I am thankful.

And you need to be, too. Count your blessings as the song says, and you will be surprised at how much God has done. I know we are all trained to ask and keep asking which in itself is not a bad thing, but to show gratitude reminds God of what needs to be done much more than any prayer would. So get in the habit of huge dollops of gratitude, a heavy dose of love and splashings of forgiveness topped with humility and I bet you, your world will be all the better for it.

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson