“Count your blessings.”
Mama didn’t need to add much explanation to that one. The meaning was clear: Stop looking at what you don’t have long enough to notice what you do.
That is easier advice to understand as a child than it is to practice throughout a lifetime.
When I was young, I probably would have counted blessings as things I wanted. A special gift. A new outfit — although, as the tomboy who wasn’t particularly interested in pretty dresses, carefully combed hair and patent-leather shoes, maybe not that outfit. Children have their own definitions of what makes life good.
Age changes the list.
Looking back, some of the greatest blessings were things I hardly noticed at the time. They were simply part of life: a family around me, a mother whose sayings would stay in my head long after childhood, teachers who encouraged me, friends who walked beside me and opportunities that sometimes arrived disguised as disappointments.
I spent many years in education, and some of my blessings came in small packages sitting behind school desks. Children have a way of teaching the adults who are supposed to be teaching them.
I saw a child make room for someone sitting alone. I watched students help classmates without being asked. I saw children find the courage to say, “I did it,” when admitting the truth would have been easier to avoid.
Those moments mattered. They still do.
Life also taught me that blessings don’t always look like blessings when they arrive.
There have been times when plans changed, doors closed and the future looked nothing like the one I had mapped out. At the time, I saw disappointment. Looking back, I can sometimes see that a closed door simply sent me in another direction — one that brought people, experiences and opportunities I might otherwise have missed.
Over the years, my definition of being blessed has changed considerably. Blessings are the people who call during a difficult week. They are friends who show up without needing to be asked. They are opportunities to help someone else. They are laughter around a table, familiar voices on the telephone and memories that grow more valuable as the years pass.
Some blessings are obvious when they happen. Others take years to recognize.
And some are found in seasons we never would have chosen.
Those may be the hardest ones to count. Gratitude doesn’t mean pretending that disappointment doesn’t hurt or that difficult days aren’t difficult. It means recognizing that hardship and blessing can sometimes occupy the same space.
There have been days in my life when counting blessings required more effort than others. On those days, the list might have needed to begin with something very small: someone who cared, work that needed doing, a prayer, a memory, another morning.
But once you begin counting, something happens.
You remember that a blessing doesn’t have to be spectacular to be significant.
A hand held at the right moment counts.
A child who makes you smile counts.
A friend who checks on you counts.
A second chance counts.
A prayer answered differently than you expected can count, too.
Mama’s generation didn’t need gratitude journals or reminders on their phones. They simply reminded us to count.
Perhaps they understood something we sometimes forget: When we spend all our time counting what is missing, we can overlook what has been there all along.
So I still hear Mama’s voice:
Count your blessings.
The older I get, the longer the list becomes.
What Mama said: Life lessons you didn’t know you needed—until Mama said them.
Enjoyed this article. Read more What Mama Said… by Susan Espiritu.
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