Wonderful Blessings of God

Can you believe it’s October already? What a blessing it is to see the season change. To hear the sound of the wind or the gently falling rain! Last week for the first week of the October challenge Tess encouraged us to find the color orange in our lives, be sure to take a look at some of the great posts from the link-up last week.

This week’s theme is the wonderful blessings of God. One of my favorite things to do is a word study. I have found that knowing more about a word can help to fully appreciate something we are talking about.

Wonderful – inspiring delight, pleasure, admiration and extremely good

Blessing – God’s favor and protection, a beneficial thing for which we are grateful.

The word blessing is an Old English blēdsian, blētsian, based on blōd ‘blood’ (i.e., originally perhaps ‘mark or consecrate with blood’). The meaning was influenced by its being used to translate Latin benedicere ‘to praise, worship,’ and later by association with bliss.

When I think of the word blessing, I often think of the old hymn: Count Your Blessings which was written in 1897.

When upon life billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged thinking all is lost.
Count your many blessings every doubt will fly,
And you will be singing as the days go by.
Chorus:
Count your blessings, name them one by one.
Count your blessings, see what God has done.
Count your blessings, name them one by one.
Count your many blessings see what God has done.

During this turbulant time around our country it’s so good to move our focus from the trouble to the blessings that surround us.

I would encourage you to make a list for this month and, throughout the day, look for the smallest of things that are a blessing, from the smile of a child, the whisp of a dewdrop, the color in a rainbow to the change of seasons around you.

I was recently reading about research done on the act of actively noting the positive in your life. The subjects of the study had to report three positive things each day for one week. They were checked after a week, and medically there were positive changes to each one. The most interesting part of the research was that after six months, the subjects were brought in and examined. Every single one still had measurable positive effects from the exercise undertaken six months before.

It’s time to refocus and look for the goodness of our Lord in our daily lives.

—oOo—