The Blessing of Counting Your Blessings

It was a cold October evening in 1960. Cindy and her sister Robin entered the front door of their small but cozy G.I. built home. They couldn’t wait to stand by the furnace register to warm their feet and toes. Robin ran to switch on a light. But for some reason the furnace wasn’t running and the lights didn’t come on when Robin hit the switch.

Mother calmly followed them into the house. She didn’t seem to be surprised or concerned at all. She clapped her hands and exclaimed, “Oh how fun! Let’s pretend to be pioneers, just for one night!” She proceeded to wrap the girls in blankets on the couch. Then she scurried about finding and lighting some candles. The girls watched as she lit the gas oven to warm the kitchen and as she prepared supper.

When supper was ready,they all ate together on the couch, snuggled under the blankets, as mother happily asked them about their day.

But Robin and Cindy weren’t about to go along with this pioneer thing without some explanation. “I’m cold and I miss Dad!”Robin complained. Her father had been ill for some time and was in the hospital.

“Yeah, and I need more light so I can finish the last chapter of my book, Mom,” chimed in Cindy “What’s the deal?”

Mother looked at Cindy and Robin with disappointment on her face. Then she thought for a moment and said, “Let me tell you a story about a little girl in my first grade classroom. She came to school last week without a coat. She only had a ragged and torn sweater. She lives with her nine brothers and sisters in a one room shack with a wood-burning stove to heat their house and only a few beds and blankets to share. This little girl is a big help to her mother, but she keeps getting sick because of the cold.” Looking sternly, yet lovingly at Cindy and Robin, Mother said, “That is why we are being pioneers tonight. I used the money I would have used for the electric bill to buy this little girl a warm coat.”

Mother went on and explained that payday was tomorrow and that she could get the electricity turned on again right away, a small price to pay for this little girl’s health. Suddenly, Cindy and Robin felt very ashamed.

“Now”, mother said, “instead of complaining, let’s play a game that my Grandmother taught to me during the depression. Let’s think of all of the good things that we have and list them one by one. Let’s count our blessings!”

So Robin and Cindy began to list all of their favorite things like long bicycle rides, a trip to the corner store to buy pixie sticks, the drive-in movie, and family picnics in the summer, neighborhood baseball games in the spring and watching the first snow fall in the winter. And then there was the scrumptious odor of pumpkin pie baking on Thanksgiving Day, and the smell of new books at the library. They listed visiting their mothers’ classroom to help her grade papers and pasting the stars at the top. The list went on and on, Sunday School teachers, sleeping in a tent at church Reunions, and singing songs at campfire, or listening to Broadway musicals on the Hi-fi radio, and giggling while their father danced an Irish Jig. They loved his heartfelt prayers at the dinner table.

Later, as they headed sleepily to bed, they prayed. They thanked God that their Dad would be home soon and that the electricity would be on again tomorrow. They thanked Him for a mother who took the time to teach them to count their blessings. As they drifted off to sleep, they were thankful for the love of Jesus that had shown through in their mother’s actions and the warmth it had brought to their family that night. Happiness instead of complaining had filled their home, and they were thankful that there was a little girl, in another home, not far away, who would also experience the warmth of His love in the form of a winter coat.

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