I have been thinking about this last year a lot lately. A lot has happened and it has been a crazy year. As I was scrolling through Facebook I came across an article written by one of my favorite authors. It rang in my ears and caused me to want to come blog about it. He wrote about how we always think about the negative things that happened to us during the year and then gave us a challenge to write about six blessings that we have experienced. The article can be found here ------http://jasonfwright.com/column/the-6-blessings-challenge.html
So I have decided to talk about my six blessings. At first I thought this would be really hard, but as I started my list it began to get easier. So here is my six blessing challenge. Hope you enjoy.
1. Every year, for the past five or so years, someone in my family has had a major surgery of some kind. This year we were graced with two. As we sat in the surgeons office discussing my husbands hernia surgery, my youngest collapsed in the waiting room and ended up having her appendix out that evening. At first I thought, well, that's just our luck. Later as I pondered on it I thought, how lucky are we that she collapsed at a surgeons office?? She was able to get the help she needed rather quickly. It was a blessing that she was ok. We are very lucky to have our little girl alive and well.
2. This blessing is associated with the first. We began to get medical bills really soon after the surgeries. Both of the surgeries were very expensive. 17,500 for one and 18,200 for the other. The insurance covered the hospital all but 10,000 of it. That is not including the doctors and anesthesia. As we struggled to know how to pay it, we applied for financial help. I dwelled on the bills a lot and I knew we couldn't pay them off. It worried me so much that I found myself very tired and frustrated a lot. One day I opened the mail and there was a letter saying that the hospital had written off both my husband and daughters bill. It was definitely a blessing from heaven.
3. A new start to my life began in February. I have always wanted to be in the police field. I am overweight and I knew I would have a lot of work to do to lose the weight in order to be able to be in the job field. I decided that going back to school would be a good thing to do as I try to lose weight. I wasn't sure if I would be able to go to a school and get funding and then one day, I just decided to meet with a school. I found one with my program and went to it. I walked I the door as a normal citizen, was accepted and enrolled by the next week. It happened so quickly that I wasn't sure if it really happened. It was a blessing to me that it happened quickly. If it hadn't, I probably would have just quit trying.
4. In all of my schooling I have not been able to pull off good grades since I was in grade school. It has been a hard road but miraculously I have gone this whole year with straight a's. I know that heaven has been an inspiration in my schooling. There is no other way I could have pulled it off.
5. I have a hard time sometimes with trusting Heavenly Father. This year as one of my resolution words, I decided to focus on that trust. Looking back on the previous blessings, you may notice that he gave me plenty of trials to learn from. Trust didn't come easy at the beginning of the year, but as we exit this year into the new one, I find that I put more trust in him than I used to. It took a lot of prayer, study and visits with the bishop to get there, but it happened. I love that I have a much greater trust in my Heavenly Father.
6. This last one is also medical related. It seems to be our annual theme. Our oldest daughter has epilepsy and this year the doctor has decided to begin decreasing one of her medications. It began in October and we visited the children's hospital every month. She has remained seizure free and the meds are still dropping. In February if she is still doing well, she will be able to quit one of her medications completely. It is progressing nicely and we hope and pray it will continue.
This was a list I thought would be rather hard. Now that I have done it, I have thought of many many more blessings I have experienced this year. The year is packed with awesome blessings. I extend the same challenge my favorite author extended---what are your six blessings?? Please share, I would love to hear them.
Happy New Year to you all!!!
