Count Your Blessings: A Way To Stay Sane in a Crisis
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done!
When I was much younger, I rolled my eyes every time we sang this hymn at church. To my mind, the lyrics touted a solution far too simplistic for the troubles our family faced.
Even when I did as instructed, life didn’t get better.
My dad was sick and getting sicker. My mom shouldered too much stress as she worked to feed and clothe us. The trend continued after the birth of our son. Five years and seven surgeries into his young life, life was hard and getting harder.
So far as the count your blessings thing went, I told God to count me out.
Then, one day the beginning of Zechariah 4:10 caught my eye: “For who has despised the day of small things?” (NASB)
Hmmmmm.
If my response to the lyrics of Count Your Blessings was any indication, I had been despising the day of small things for years. Maybe even decades.
Not good. Not good at all.
An attitude change was long overdue, and it was a hard change to make. But as I began to look for small blessings, it was easier to see and delight in them.
And then, along came COVID-19.
The temptation was strong to stop searching for small and good things while living through such a vast pandemic. But for my own mental and spiritual health, I kept looking for and found these 10 tiny and precious treasures.
The ability to walk. My dad’s 38 years in a wheelchair make me grateful for mobility every day.
Favorite notebooks and mechanical pencils. I don’t know why speckled composition books, yellow legal pads, architectural mechanical pencils bring great joy, but they do.
Ordering online. It’s fast. (At least the ordering part is fast.) It’s easy. And it’s much safer for old coots like me who want to stay healthy until the risk of catching COVID-19 go down.
Our espresso machine. Several members of our household love good coffee, so we splurged on it last summer. The coronavirus shut down feels less confining with delicious espresso at hand.
It’s spring. More daylight and warmer temperatures bring me joy and hope.
Bird song. Another daily source of joy and hope.
Intergenerational living. We live in the same house with our daughter, son-in-law, and their two children. This intentional living arrangement began 4 years ago, and it takes work to keep things going smoothly. To us, it’s worth it. Doubly so during the shut down. Our daughter trimmed my hair a few weeks back. Our son-in-law does the grocery shopping. And water, sewer, garbage, and energy bills are split between families. Win! Win! Win!
Eavesdropping on a 5-year-old at play. This could have been lumped in with #7, but listening in on a child’s make believe world is so dear, it deserves its own spot.
Happy birthday to me. Our 2-year-old granddaughter sings this when she washes her hands. It’s too much cuteness to lump in with #7.
FaceTime. We use it to connect with our other 2 grands and with my 91-year-old mom who’s in a residential care facility. Because of #7, all our grands can visit at the same time, and Mom gets to see her great-grands. More wins!
Caregiving or COVID-19 can make it hard to count your blessings, and I get that. But I encourage you to look for them, no matter how small. They have the power to keep you sane in a crisis.
Because little things matter.
Tiny things count.
Small things add up.
And you are worth it.
Jolene Philo is the author of the Different Dream series for parents of kids with special needs. She speaks at parenting and special needs conferences around the country. She recently co-authored Sharing Love Abundantly in Special Needs Families: The 5 Love Languages® for Parents Raising Children with Disabilities with Dr. Gary Chapman. Her blog for parents raising children with special needs and disabilities can be found at www.DifferentDream.com.
