Blessings: The Little Things (Day 1)
Today is the first day in the Lenten season. Each year, I mull over what I might give up for Lent. Most of the time, it’s sweets. Go figure. This year, I have decided to go ahead and give up my nightly ice cream. Might not sound like much, but I can get in quite the huff if I don’t have some ice cream before bed. This feels, to me, like a good sacrifice for the next 40 days and one that will regularly remind me that I’m making said sacrifice. It will give me reason to pause and consider the ultimate sacrifice that was made for me and for all the world.
In addition to giving up ice cream, I’ve decided to blog daily about blessings. While I could lament the loss of daily ice cream and wallow in self-pity, I don’t believe that is the reason for this holiest of seasons. Instead, I believe we are called at this time to reflect on what we have and, again, that sacrifice that was made for us. So, I’m going to blog daily, and I’m going to talk about the blessings that I see in my life. Some may be obvious. Some may feel like a stretch. Regardless, I’m going to do it so that I can take some of this negativity I’ve been feeling lately (I’m tired) and turn it into a way to glorify Him.
Today’s verse to ponder: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Philemon 1:25 (NIV)
The little things are what I find as a blessing today. We’ve been snowed in this week (it’s actually ice, but it’s much more fun to talk about snow), so we can’t really go outside and do anything. I’m 29+ weeks pregnant and not feeling like lugging people around in the mini-van. Takes too much effort to get everyone bundled, in the car, out of the car, back in the car, etc. I’m also extremely slammed with various projects for each of my jobs — all of which I like and appreciate but all of which take a good chunk of my mental capacity and precious, limited time.
But today, my children decided to like each other, and they played in Miss Sassy Pants’s room without argument for about thirty minutes. I’ve talked before about how important even 5 minutes can be when you need to finish something or just knock a few items off your list. But thirty minutes?! In work-at-home mom terms, that’s almost like hours.
It was glorious. My children played, listened to music, didn’t argue or cry, and were happy. I heard laughter coming from big sister’s room. Then, I heard the sound of the adjective song from School House Rock. The Animal (3) told his sister, “I like this song!” and they danced.
Did I mention glorious?
After that, Miss Sassy Pants graciously made the boys their lunch and sat with them. This gave me almost 15 more minutes of work time.
Has every second of today been perfect? Oh no. But that’s not the point of this blog post or the next 39 days of blog posts. Instead, I’m looking for blessings that happen even in the midst of chaos. Today’s approximately 45 minutes was one of them.
How’s your day today? Tell me something that has blessed you. And be sure to share this post!
Thanks for this. Brings back memories and fills my need for something different as a morning devotional.
Awesome!