A Blessing a Day Keeps the......

I am looking forward to the day when I will be able to hook my computer up to myself so that at night when I have these great insights I can just push the button and it will read my mind and print out my thoughts! I can never remember the next day all the things I wanted to write down and that would help me out a lot! Last night I was thinking about my new practice of listing at least 3 blessings in my journal each night before I go to bed. Sometimes I cannot recall 3 (!) and so I have to ask someone around me to add one or two to help me out. And if that does not work, I add the line that "only God knows" because I figure there are undoubtedly many wonderful things that God has done for me each day that I did not see or did not remember, and that way I am covered. Some of the more easily overlooked blessings have been things like a sunny day, a great cup of coffee, a toe that no longer hurts, hymns that have such a great message, prescription coverage, polka music, beef pot roast, coffee with friends, and that "this could be the dawning of That Day". And that would be just for March alone. I am training myself to write down smaller blessings because anyone can see the big ones like health, food, family, etc. I am trying to see if the recognition of blessings can help keep the Devil away. I have noticed that I have a tendency lately to complain and whine too much and I know this does not please God, especially as He does so many wondrous things for me. When I do this, God likes to bring before me the faces of people who really do have a problem worth complaining about - like Jenni and her Sjogren's, and Lisa and her knee, and my friend whose husband left her, and Scott who went so many months without employment, and like Rachel from our Bible Study whose father tricked her on her wedding night and gave her intended groom to her older sister, and like the paralyzed, the really poor, and so many others. Okay, so I have a rather long list of things that I wish were different but God is telling me that He knows what I need and that He is completing in me that Salvation that He began almost 54 years ago. That knowledge alone should be enough to change the whining to praising. I am working on it!

Page 2 of 2

Today as I sat in our car waiting for my husband, I looked down and saw a note I had written on some scrap paper. The corner of the scrap paper noted that it was page 2 of 2 and that got me thinking. I love to turn innocent signs into funny messages and this was no exception. I thought that it would make a good status report for my facebook account or for my yahoo account but I could see the many questions it would raise among my friends and family. So I decided to flesh it out on my blog site. My first thought was that, "Yes, that is where I am at in life - I am on page 2 of 2. But when did page 1 flip over to 2? Was it at age 33 and the end may be soon? Or did it turn at age 66 and I have lots of time left - or maybe at age 50 and ...well you get the picture." Then I thought about how this page 2 of 2 is just an extra attachment to the real receipt that we had printed for an online bill payment. It was really kind of useless in one way, but very useful for scrap paper needs. Some may have thrown it away, but I was happy to recycle it. Then I said to my husband, "this will preach!" kind of similar to "that dog will hunt", etc. You know, none of us knows just what page we are on in our life span. Good thing we don't know - saves a lot of unnecessary worry and stress. Maybe the best is yet to come, and maybe not. Either way, the Person at the word processor is in charge and we can just relax and let Him finish His story as He plans. Secondly, in His plan, there is no useless paper at the end. He only prints out what is needed and if it looks useless to me -well I just better be getting busy and recycling it and finding new uses for it! In the same way that the pot does not question the Potter, so the paper does not get to question the Printer ( a little license with Romans 9:21). I just love the One who created me, and I feel confident that His plan for me is best. Wherever I am in His story for me, I want to give Him glory and meet His expectations!