Reflection Of The Past Year

The past year has been a crazy one. With the down economy and the negative job market, it has more and more people going over to the half glass empty side of the argument. Over the past few months, I have been looking at my bank account going down, my bills going up, illness and tension in the family, craziness at work, as well as other overall stresses of life.

At the end of the year, a lot of people and websites do the news of the year in a five minute segment or whatever. It's funny how many of them focus on war, disaster, death, destruction, and other such negativity. In fact, if you turn on the local news here in Saint Louis on any given day, at least one of the first three stories will be about how someone was murdered, or died in a house fire. That may just be a Saint Louis thing, I have no idea. 

With all this negativity around us all, it is easy for us to forget that there actually is good occurring in this world. For example, all those things that I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post, have overshadowed everything that I have been blessed with, and that I truly am blessed. If you have a second, scan over to the right of this page and look at the "About  Me" section. In the first sentence, I have mentioned three of the greatest blessings that I could have ever asked for. The first being my wife, and the second two being my two beautiful children, who all love me with their whole heart. On top of this, even in this economy, I do have a job, as does my wife. We have a house, and even though our bank account is dwindling, it is still there and we do have enough coming in to get by. We each have a car, they have a few problems now and then, but nothing that can't be easily fixed. 

I was thinking about all of this the other day, and it came to me. There are people out there that would kill for this kind of life, there are those who fight and die so others can have this kind of life. The things in my life that I have and take for granted are things that my neighbors long for. And what do I focus on when I go to prayer? "Lord, please give me more of this...." or "Lord, please grant me more of that..." 

It's easy to forget that God has blessed us. I invite you to take the next few minutes, hours, or whatever, to reflect on what you have instead of what you think you may need. Then go to God in a prayer of thanksgiving. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can leave some of your thanksgivings in the comments section of this post.

Lord, we thank you for the blessings that you have bestowed upon us, and ask for your continued grace in all of our lives. We further ask for your guidance in using your gifts given to us to bring the joy that only you can provide into the lives of others. Amen.