Simple Gifts, Boundless Blessings

Sometimes, it’s the small things that bless me the most. Oh, I have had some biggies this past year and I rejoiced greatly over them. But it’s wrong to overlook the simpler gifts God gives us. How easy it is to regard the very things we consider ordinary as just the way things are.

I went to the grocery store yesterday and bought everything on my list. But as I was paying for it, it never occurred to me to thank God that I had access to so much food, as well as the means to purchase it. Most of the world does not have such abundance, and even in our own country, there are many who would love to buy say, fresh fruit, and cannot because it’s too expensive.

I brought it all home and put it in a cold refrigerator, in an air conditioned house, filled with every kind of convenience. Did I think to thank God? No, the thought never crossed my mind. I have a good education, a great job that pays reasonably well, the means to buy most clothing and shoes I want, along with many other desires, above and beyond the basic needs of life. Yet, I thoughtlessly take them as commonplace things I acquire through my own efforts.

If I stop and truly think about it, the majority of people in the world do not even have access to the things we consider as ordinary, let alone the means to buy them. My middle class income and possessions are beyond their wildest dreams. My house is a small two bedroom “cracker box” house built 50 years ago. Certainly humble, but it’s a house, while thousands upon thousands of refugees do not even have tents. I turn on lights, I can shower daily and have all the clean water I want, I have transportation with a new car, things that the majority of people in the world can barely imagine.

My mother has prayed the same prayer of grace before eating for more years than I have lived: “Gracious heavenly Father, we thank you for this food. Teach us to be ever mindful of all the good things that come from your hands, and let us always have grateful hearts. In your name we pray, amen.” It is a simple prayer, but it is a prayer of thanksgiving that is certainly sweet to God’s ears.

I pray that I, too, will be taught to be mindful of all the good things, the simple things that God has blessed me with. And I pray for forgiveness that I have taken all I’ve been given for granted. The words from an old Shaker hymn sums it up: “Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be…” Where we ought to be is in the place of continual gratitude. I’m going to find my way there and hopefully stay there.