Count Your Blessings

I hope this post does not chase anyone off, but I chose to blog on Prayer and blessings. How often do we actually sit down and say thank you for what life has given us? How often do we say thank you for the blessings in our life. I'm sure you can think of just one thing to say thank you for. This long and challenging week, I realized I did have one thing to be thankful for. My husband just found out the results of his cancer scan. His scan came back negative for cancer. Wow, what a relief! After reflecting further, I realized I was thankful for two things. Mental illness can present a lot of challenges, but one thing that may not come to mind often, is just being alive. Just the other day, my daughter informed me that a young man she meet while in the hospital, died of a drug overdose. Additionally, a young woman she also met while hospitalized, has returned to self mutilation. That must be real painful for the family to watch helplessly as a family member injures them self. I recall seeing the extremely large scars on her arms as my daughter introduced us to her. I guess I should thank God my husband is still alive and for the most part, after two surgeries and radiation is doing rather well. I might also add ,that for the most part my daughter is doing better than some of the others we have encountered during her stay at the hospital. For the majority of Americans, Thanksgiving day is about the only time when we think about what’s actually important in life and why we should count our blessings. Happiness in life is not about material possessions or money. Happiness is first and foremost found in a certain comforting fact. That when our time has come to leave this life, we will spend the last moment we have alive on this earth, surrounded by the ones we love. It is about going through one of the most difficult challenges we have ever been through, such as mental illness and knowing we are not alone. Honestly, not everyone can say that. Our family visited my daughter regularly, during the four months she was hospitalized every other day, at times more often than that. We made the nearly hour long trip, during the only visitation time available, during rush hour traffic, from 6 to 8 pm. During her stay there, there was a particular young man that no mater how often we visited, never had one single person come by the entire four months. My daughter informed me no one ever came to see him, as so did the staff. It is the small everyday things that so very often the majority of us take for granted. We are all blessed, in some manner or other, no matter what walk of life we come from. We should all pray and count our blessings, and say thank you for what we have instead of focusing on what we do not have. For those who are recovering from a serious illness, prayer can be a powerful form of therapy and treatment, itself. It is a proven fact, that seriously ill patients who pray before beginning any type of treatment or surgery have better results afterwards. There have actually been many studies conducted on the subject of prayer in relation to the field of medicine and it's effect on patients. From the moment you awaken you should give thanks for what you have, waking up beside your partner whom you cherish and love, turning to them and saying “thank you” makes a great start to the day “Thank you” for loving me, for being there for me, just for being you”.This is the person you cherish and who you are lucky enough to wake up beside every morning. This alone makes you one of the most blessed people on earth and is good enough reason to count your blessings each and every morning. I don't disagree, that in this most difficult time we all are going through. Given an unstable economy, higher divorce rates, foreclosures, higher incidents of suicide, and job loss just to name a few. With all of these occurrences triggering a higher incident of depression and mental illness; it can be real hard to say a prayer of thanks. If mental illness is your current challenge, think for a moment, how lucky you are, to be alive and going through treatment for an illness in the first place. The most wonderful blessings in life can be found in the small things. I am absolutely sure we can all recall a few small blessings. I know I can add a few to my list, such as, being greeted by a favorite pet, the sunshine and fresh air, running into an old friend, smelling the flowers in our garden, a slice of our favorite pie. There are many things that happen throughout your day which we don’t pay attention to but truly are blessings, some can even occur as blessings in disguise. What is important is to be more aware of what is happening in our lives and appreciate all the little things that can often slip by us without giving them too much thought. Remember most of all, often it is the smallest things in life that can bring us the most happiness. To quote singer Edwin Mccain, these are the moments I thank God that I’m alive, these are the moments, I’ll remember all my life. God Bless all.