Count your blessings

Our pastor has been working his way through the book of John and this week we were encouraged to count our blessings. We actually ended the service singing that song. Now I have to admit that having a tired/bored/restless/whatever 5 year old in church with me every week keeps me from hearing and/or concentrating probably 90% of the time. I get snatches of stuff here and there but never a full sermon; so I have learned to grab as much as I can out of the snatches. Kate can't help being 5 and I am training her but the very act of training her to sit and listen consumes the majority of my brain space during that hour. But today when we sang Count Your Blessings, she was being good b/c she knew it was almost over and I got to really listen to the words instead of just mindlessly singing & keeping her from goofing around. I grew up singing this song, none of the words were a surprise, but sometimes you just get used to songs and don't HEAR them when you sing. As the pastor was saying, we can get comfortable with Christ and forget his glory & awesomeness... the same happens to songs when we get comfortable and forget the glory and truth of them. In fact that same happens with many things... marriages, relationships, blessings... we can get so used to them that we forget to be grateful for them.

The second verse is what really struck me today.
Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will keep singing as the days go by.

Am I ever burdened? Oh my gosh, am I ever!! For the last 11 years life has been incredibly difficult. Not just inconveniently difficult but almost unbearably difficult. I know I've said it before but I will say it again... knowing that everything outside your own house could kill your child is stressful beyond words. Autism was terrible but we're done with that now. But still... the food allergies... ugh. Sometimes I just want to run away from it all but of course I could never do that. As I tell my kids, I'd be bored out of my mind without them around. :D But burdened? Oh yeah. Every time my kids get left out of something every other kid can do, every time they look sad but try to tell me "It's ok that we can't ...", every time they throw a fit b/c they're tired of being left out, every time they feel unsafe and afraid, every time my kids hurt b/c of the choices that were made for them before I knew what I know now. A burden on my heart is an inadequate description really.

Does this cross seem heavy to bear? Well yeah! If you have kids, you know nothing hurts you more than the pain your kids endure. Sometimes I feel downright picked on in all of this; which is of course a very selfish view as this isn't even about me. But I am the mom and my heart breaks when they hurt. Every dream I ever had of doing all the typical little kids things has been dashed repeatedly through the years. Is that hard to bear? Yep.

Count your blessings every doubt will fly. That sounds so trite... count my blessings. Not always an easy task but when done, I have to say doubts DO fly. Hope is renewed each time.

And I'll keep singing as the days go by.
Really? Hmmmm maybe so.

So let's count blessings...

*Doctors who understand the true root cause of the kids problems and work tirelessly to help repair the issues
*Husband who brings home a paycheck every month and doesn't squawk over the amount of money going to medical issues, supplements, alternative docs and other things that most people don't spend money on
* Parents who help me ALOT, both financially, emotionally and spiritually
*A church where they work hard to include my kids in many of the childrens activities
*Kids who connect with me and talk to me
*Autism is gone
* I get to home school
*Kids who think I am Wonder Woman (or at least think I'm a hero of some sort)
*Friends who pray for me
*Friends who pray for the kids health issues
* A father who lends my mom to us for months at a time although he REALLY misses her badly each time
* A mom who listens to me cry, rant, rave, squawk, yell, go bonkers... and loves me anyway :)
*The ability to feed my kids healthy foods (not everyone can afford real food unfortunately)
*Again, a husband who doesn't pitch temper tantrums over how much of his hard earned money goes to the alternative medicine and kids healing... I probably can't say that one enough
* Hope
*The ability to educate myself for the betterment of my families health
* A nice house
*A nice vehicle
* The ability to pay all our bills and live in comfort
*Freedom to worship
*A house full of STUFF with the only goal of making our lives easier
*Epipens so when an emergency happens, there's a solution
*A GOD who loves my kids more than I am capable of doing

I think that's the biggest one. God knows the suffering. He knows. He sees the struggles, the heartbreak, the danger, the stress, the fear; and He gives me the tools every day to face it all.

Now THAT is something to sing about.