Count them blessings

February 21, 2012

Count them blessings

Today, let’s begin with an excerpt from a hymn I grew up on:

“Count your many blessings, name them one by one

and it will surprise you what the Lord has done”.

Those are powerful words for the moments in life when we feel lost, forgotten, abandoned, used and discarded, miserable or so low we have to raise our heads to see the bottom of the pit.

Life can be tough on us. “Life is War” is a common inscription on Ghana’s commercial vehicles.

It is true that life is war but it’s also true that we have seen some victories in our time.

The question therefore becomes: “Do we take time to recount our victories?”

The fact that a lot of rich, successful, blessed people die taking anti-depressants and pain killers tells us a lot:

Money, beauty, talent and fame don’t necessarily bring us happiness. Happiness often stems from a deliberate pondering on the little blissful moments that have brushed against our souls like soft breezes: The birth of a child. The day one fell in love. A postcard from a long lost friend. Ice cream on a sunny day. Unwrapping your first tricycle. Trying out your first pair of converse. Remember when you got your first ipod? How about when you wrote your first love letter?

I know most of these things seem trivial but don’t forget no matter how huge a gate is, the key that opens it is often tiny. Don’t ignore the tiny memories.

The more of those moments you can accumulate the bigger your mountain of happiness gets.

Even the most wretched of souls has been blessed before. Even the happiest of souls has known moments of loss and pain. That is life. What happens to us will never be as important as what we do with them. I choose to count my blessings.

Whether shooting from the bucket of a forklift, high up in the sky on a god-forsaken mine or playing buffoon around my 2 year old daughter, I consider myself blessed.