Finding My Blessings

Immediately-- and I do mean immediately after I wrote the post about finding our blessings-- my son who had been saying his stomach hurt said his cheeks felt hot, crawled into my bed and fell soundly asleep. In the middle of the morning. This is a child who doesn't voluntarily sleep ever. This was NOT a good sign. I left him sleeping in bed and got up to get a drink of water. When I pulled the glass out of the cabinet, it slipped out of my hands, hit our tile countertop and smashed into hundreds of shards of glass. I cleaned it up, prayed I had gotten all the glass, and walked back to my room to check on my sleeping child. As I walked by the stairs, I heard the baby crying. No, make that screaming. Bloody murder. Seems she had been up for awhile but her monitor had decided to give up the ghost and so the device I used to hear her had not been working, but I didn't know it. (It is now in the trash.) With the tv, dishwasher, and dryer all running, I wasn't able to hear her.

I retrieved her from her bed, calmed her down and held her. She was distraught. I rocked her back and forth and hummed a little tune in my head as I did. The words to this tune were, "Bad mom, bad mom, bad mom." Guilt ruled. I made her a drink of milk and some cereal which she wolfed down. A few minutes later, she started getting clingy and complaning about her stomach hurting. I tried to work on my cleaning-- because I have about ten women coming over here tonight. She kept clinging and crying, and her lips were very, very pale.

Not a good sign. But I remained positive and tried to tell myself that there was no relation to my son's ailments and hers-- that she was just upset over being left to scream alone in her bed this morning. Because all that screaming would make my stomach hurt, so why not?

Of course, you know where this is heading. Here is the blessing I found in her throwing up: We made it to the kitchen sink instead of on the den carpet where we were standing. There was no blessing to be found in that smell, I must say. Not a single one.

And so, it has turned out that finding my blessings today are a bit of a challenge. But then again, I was always a sucker for a good challenge. So, here are my blessings. They may have taken some digging-- but by golly I found em!

• Anytime one of my kids gets sick, I focus on the blessing of living in a country where I can take them to the doctor if I need to, and give them medicine if I need to. I often think of moms in third world countries who can't give their children adequate medical care or administer Motrin for a fever or pain. How that must grieve a mother's heart to helplessly watch her child suffer. How blessed I am and yet do I take it for granted?


• I have a house to decorate, to clean, to open up to my friends.


• I live in a country where we can gather shamelessly and fearlessly in God's name, openly praying and supporting each other in our walk.


• I have food in my house that I can cook and offer to my friends.


• My husband can't be here to help me tonight because he has to be at a work function. I feel overwhelmed by the thought of all that I must do alone, and how hard it is going to be for me to keep the kids occupied and out of sight while he is gone and the ladies are here. And yet, he has a job-- a job that provides for us and allows me to be a stay at home mom. (He did get home earlier than I expected, so that was also a blessing.)
• I go to a great church and have made some friends there who homeschool, love their families and husbands, and are just all around cool people. We had a great time together tonight-- and that was a blessing. I was especially blessed by Christina, who spent time putting together a handout and came over with all her lapbooks to give us all a tutorial on lapbooking that was informative and interesting. We were all inspired!
• I have great kids who help me get the house ready-- while complaining some, yes-- but they do it because they see I really need their help. That is a blessing.
• And the chocolate cake I made for our gathering was moist, chocolatey and sweet. Now that's a blessing you don't even have to look for!

Finally, as I turn in for the night tonight, I am happy to report that everyone seems to be on the mend. I had to do some digging to find my blessings today, but I did find them, and it made quite a difference in the low moments. I need to do it more often.