Another Year of Blessings

I know it sounds cliche but I am so blessed. I don't take the time to acknowledge the source of my blessing NEAR enough. I have a sign in my kitchen that says "Count Your Blessings" but how often do I forget to read that on my way out to climb in my old car (also a blessing) to pick up two or three of them. Blessings, they are everywhere. I have plenty of stuff I could live without and I'm making an attempt at getting rid of some of it. Some of the stuff I've acquired just stresses me out. I don't need too much in this ADD brain to get me off track of what's important,and I really do want to focus on what is important in this life.
As I've watched the news the past two weeks some of my blessings have become more profound. Can you imagine having no water? We go to the sink and expect to have water, how often I have taken for granted the fact I have safe drinking water. In Haiti water is a luxury. It is the same for the people on Indian Reservations in South Dakota. I heard last night that people are dying there because they have no electricity and are trying to heat their homes with kerosene because it is below 0 degrees. These are the same people our great great grandfathers escorted off their land so we could live in this nice southern climate. These people are so poor and depressed that they have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. I can imagine...if I had to watch my children freeze and go without adequate food and heat I'd be depressed too....the point is I don't have to do without anything I really need. So my car is old, my house has "issues". I have everything I could possibly dream of and more.
I think the one event that changed me more than anything in the last two weeks was the woman in Haiti who was laying on the ground with her head in the lap of one of her sister-friends who was trying to console her. She had lost four children in the initial earthquake and then her fifth at the makeshift hospital. I cannot get this woman's face out of my mind. These people are so poor, they don't care about houses or cars. They've never had much so "stuff" means nothing to them...but, to lose all her babies...they were her hope. They were her future. I'm sure she had dreams of them becoming self sufficient and getting out of poverty, maybe one was a musician and maybe one or two were artists, or fishermen or dancers maybe one of her daughters had learned to sew and was helping the family with clothes. In a matter of moments all her dreams died. I wonder if she knows God. I wonder if she knows he is holding her in his hand. I wonder if there is anyone who can reach her in her grief. I am praying for her today. I am remembering that there is no "thing" I need in this world that can take the place of my Father's love for me.
And I am counting my blessings
Hannah, Micah, Matthan, Seth, Ariel, Cheyenne, Felicity, Aidie, Anderson and all who are to come. Thank you Lord....how could I ask for more.