Counting Your Blessings

     Around the world and throughout most cultures, giving thanks for our blessings, for the abundance of the harvest is an important tradition. From the American Thanksgiving, to the Homowo Festival in Ghana; these rituals call us to be grateful for the bounty of the harvest.

     To me, the prevalence of these rituals suggests a deep intrinsic understanding that gratitude is an essential component of human life. Our ancestors may have believed that its importance was tied to honoring and pleasing the gods. In our contemporary world, psychologist have linked gratitude to our emotional, mental, and physical well-being. The counseling center at the University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth  lists a multitude of benefits people gain through expressing gratitude on a regular basis.

     In the midst of an overwhelming change, the platitudes you often hear encourage you to, "count your blessing." It can be difficult to listen to such words of encouragement. It is even more difficult to apply it to your life - even if it is one of the most important things you can do at that time.

     When my son and I left behind the abuse of our old home, I found myself in a difficult period of change. I was suddenly a single mother. I was responsible for all of my own expenses as well being pressured by my former husband to pay several of his. Money was tight. We had a limited circle of support. And while having the weight of constantly walking on egg shells taken off of my shoulders was a wondrous relief and very welcome, the stress of all the new responsibilities; the sense of isolation made it so difficult to see much of anything to be grateful for.

     I repeated my story over and over - to myself; to the few friends I was just starting to make - focusing on the hurt, the wounds, the fresh scars. I felt myself spiraling into an abyss of anger and bitterness. The days were dark and the nights long.

     I finally came to a point where I had to change my approach or risk loosing hope; risk losing the

I think it's time I add another page to continue my wall!

potential this new situation represented.

     On the door of my closet, I taped up a large sheet of white flip-chart paper. I titled it "My Gratitude Wall."  On it I started writing all of the things for which I was grateful. At first I added the obvious. I was thankful for my son. My achievements. My friends.

     Gradually, the items shifted to less obvious things. I was grateful for the beauty I was beginning to see in myself. I was thankful for my strengths - things I had downplayed for most of my life. I began to show appreciation for the dreams I was starting to bring into reality.

     As a child, we often sung a hymn about gratitude in Sunday morning church services.

"When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done."

     I found gratitude was my ticket to a brighter future. Gratitude hasn't changed the past. It doesn't mean my pain wasn't real. It let me see there was more to the place I was in than I could initially see. It has taken time, but it has led me to a place where I could thrive!