Gratitude for Everyday Blessings

     It only takes a day of feeling BLAH to really begin to appreciate the simple gifts of life:  your bed, a warm house, a hot bath, simple food, someones expression of concern.  Having spent the day yesterday feeling not so great, it was nice to have those essentially mundane, but oh so meaningful conveniences.  In fact, I know these are things that people in some situations would regard as luxuries.

     Most of us in the United States are blessed to enjoy the necessities of life.  I wonder how often we think of those who have no roof, no medical attention, no wholesome, delicious food, no hot water.  There are so many needs in the world that go unmet.  If we were to ask ourselves, in all soberness, what needs we have that are  unfulfilled, most of us would have to confess, "not  many."   Lots of wants may be hanging out, unaddressed, but few, if any, needs.   We are so incredibly blessed!

     In my mother's personal history, she writes about her childhood during the Great Depression:

               "One day Mama went downtown to get a bag of flour.  When she got to the

              store, the storekeeper told her he didn't have any, but she saw a bag of flour

Children of the Great Depression

              sitting in the corner and mentioned it to him.  He told her he 

              couldn't sell it to her because it had gotten wet.  She told him

              she would take it anyway and offered him a quarter. He 

              refused the quarter, but told her to take the flour.  

              She lugged that 25 pound bag home.  When she had used 

              about a third of the bag for biscuits and pancakes they began 

              to taste moldy, so she changed from baking powder to baking 

              soda to camouflage the taste.  After a while the taste got so 

              bad she had to give up using the flour for cooking and saved 

              the rest for wall paper paste.

                  "I remember many mornings going to school after eating a breakfast of chocolate

              pudding and canned milk.  This was not very nutritious but it filled our bellies."

     These simply are not conditions we think of as we eat our bacon and eggs or purchase baked goods from the supermarket.  Hopefully, we will never be as desperate or need to get as creative as my grandmother.  Hopefully we will never know the deprivation that so many people experienced during that horrible time in the 1930s. 

     I believe that, for the vast majority of us, our needs are pretty well taken care of.   Pausing a moment to assess how blessed we are is a humbling thing.  Giving thanks for those blessings, a measure of our recognition of the very fortunate situation in which we live.  Don't wait until you have a "sick day" to realize the gifts you enjoy.  Take time today to express gratitude for the seemingly simple, but ever so wonderful comforts of life!

TODAY'S  INSPIRED  QUOTATION:
"Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."  Author Unknown

Photo Credit:  FDR Presidential Library & Museum