Counting Our Blessings

The word blessed gets tossed around so freely these days it feels as if it's meaning is somehow blurred. Scroll through your Instagram feed for five minutes and you're guaranteed to see at least five hashtags containing the word blessed. Through the fog of #blessed captions we find ourselves searching for what it truly means to be blessed. I think the answer to this important life question is as vast as the lives we live, blessed looks different for each person. This year the world watched many terrified families run from their homes frightened by the return of the Taliban powers. Moms fled from their homes with their children in a desperate attempt to escape the country. We watched videos of parents handing their young babies and children over crowds of people in hopes they would reach the soliders and be brought on planes to safety. Those parents often had no idea where their children would end up, in those chaotic moments all they wanted was to ensure a better future for their children. As a mother here in Canada, I can't even begin to imagine how frightened those mother's must have been at the airports. Im sure as many families landed safely as refugees in Canada they truly felt blessed. A mom of three, who works long hours on the front lines as an ICU nurse has been stretched to her limits the last few weeks. She has worked back to back shifts because they are short staffed and is beyond exhausted. Everyday this week as she left the hospital she was met with angry protestors. These people yelled at her, they were mean...and the interaction led to her melting down in her car before she drove home. She went into nursing to help others, and now she felt as if she was in a pool drowning while people watched and did nothing to save her. It was as if every person watching her sink was holding a life preserver, the very tool that could save her from drowning. Everyone watched but no one wanted to throw in their life line, out of fear that they might get wet trying to save her. She drives home and wraps her arms around her kids, she hugs then a little tighter today because she sat and cried with a mom on the covid ward who lost her son this morning. This mom feels truly blessed to be holding her healthy children in her arms. A forest fire raged through their tiny village this week. The families who lived there only had a few hours notice to evacuate and didn't have time to pack many of their personal items. Everyone piled into their vehicles and drove away unsure if or when they would return to their homes, unsure if they would even have a home to return to after the fires. The families piled into the civic centers nervously waiting for news about their village, anxious to hear it if the fire crews had been able to put out the blaze. Hours passed and finally news traveled through the room that the village had been hit hard, that no structures had been left untouched by the mighty flames that rolled through. A new mom sits holding her tiny little boy, she kisses his head and tears rolling down her cheeks she breaths deeply and knows just how blessed they are to have gotten out when they did. Material possessions can always be replaced but her family is irreplaceable. When I say blessed means different things to different people, I really truly do mean that. I know just how privileged and fortunate I am to have a healthy family, a warm home to live in & a safe neighborhood for my kids to play. We live in an entitled society here in Canada, it's easy to get pulled into a vortex of material things we don't have. We tend to only feel #blessed when we achieve the next level or purchase the next big thing. We live in a society focused on the hustle and grind of reaching the next goal. Perhaps it's time to shift our focus to finding #blessed right where we are. Opening our eyes to see just how exceptionally rich we are, I'm not strictly talking about our finances but more specifically all the amazing everyday gifts we have. Instead of feeling #blessed with our Starbucks coffee, new shoes or shiny new car purchase, maybe it's the right time to begin showing humble gratitude for the things we have right now. Somewhere in the world someone would give anything to sit in your shoes, I think feeling truly blessed may require a change in perspective or point of view. The world feels exceptionally heavy right now and I think we could all benefit from sitting down and counting our endless blessings. Now more than ever, I think we could all use a little more gratitude and perspective.