Memory Monday: Small Blessings (Genesis 49:26)

Friday was a frustrating day for me. I already had one child at home sick for half of the first week of school when I got a message from the school nurse asking me to come pick up my other daughter who was running a fever.

We had big plans for the weekend -- a birthday party, first soccer game of the season, tickets to the Red Sox-Royals baseball game. Two sick kids were not on the agenda.

After picking up my daughter and settling her in a chair to watch endless episodes of "Phineas & Ferb," I texted my frustrations to a friend. By the time she texted me back, my oldest daughter had started feeling better and my youngest was showing few signs of being as sick as her sister had been. I was feeling a bit better about life and was able to point out during the conversation that it could have been worse. It could have been hockey "tryout" weekend.

My friend texted me back with a statement that made me sit back and take notice. She said "Small blessings are still blessings." In the midst of feeling sorry for myself and being frustrated that my plans were being messed up, those five little words forced me to take a look not just at my attitude for the day but my attitude toward life.

How often do we miss the blessings that God offers because in the grand scheme of everything going on in our lives, they seem small?

What I really wanted on Friday was two well children. I wanted a big blessing. What I got was two children sick on the first week of school, a week where they would not miss a lot of work. However, I was so caught up in the misery of my messed up plans that it was too easy for me to gloss over that blessing.

Genesis 49:26 says "Your father’s blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age-old hills." God has lots of blessings He wants to offer us, big and small. Yet, too often, we can only focus on the big blessings, and we miss the small ones.

Even as we parents are prone to missing the small blessings, kids are often so single-minded that they, too, miss God's small blessings. We need to be able to find the small blessings in our own lives and help our kids focus on the small blessings in their lives as well.

• Treat God's blessings like blessings. It's easy to write off God's small blessings as coincidence or luck. Start giving credit where credit is due. When God blesses you or your family in a small way, point it out and give Him thanks. Whether it's finding your car keys so you won't be late or doing well on a test your child thought he would fail, praise God for those things.
• Make it a point to notice the small blessings in your life and point them out to your kids. If something good happens to you during the day, point out to your kids how God takes care of us, even in the small stuff.
• At dinner one night, talk about what blessings are. Explain that they don't have to be big. Then ask your kids, "What blessings did you receive today?" This gets your kids thinking about ways that God has blessed them in their own lives.

Counting our blessings, both big and small, gives us a heart of gratitude. It focuses our hearts on all God has done and is doing for us. It can put the little annoyances and frustrations of life in perspective. Watching for the small blessings and being grateful for them can change our hearts and our attitudes.

Be on the lookout today for the small ways in which God blesses your life. Because small blessings are still blessings.

Remembering to Be Thankful

I spent a lot of time when my kids were toddlers teaching them to say "thank you." We started before they could talk and taught them sign language for thank you. When they could speak, we gently reminded them to always say thank you when someone had done something for them.

Having our kids say thank you is polite. But I think telling someone else "thank you" is as much a reminder to us to be thankful as it is a sign of politeness. Unfortunately, too often our thanks becomes rote. We simply say thank you because we are supposed to, not because we feel any gratitude at all.

I think this is true in our conversations with God as well. Our prayers of thanksgiving can become a habitual recitation of the same things. It's not that we're not grateful for those things, it's simply that we've lost the awe and wonder involved in true gratitude.

Our kids tend to struggle with this as well. In our materialistic culture, it's easy for them to overlook all that they have because others appear to have more. We need to help our kids cultivate an attitude that recaptures the awe of knowing that God provides for us.

Psalm 106:1 says "Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever." Our thankfulness should be rooted in our knowledge that God is good and He loves us. Because of those two qualities, He gives us good things.

When we let gratitude take over as the attitude of our hearts, we can find the good in all situations. It will change our perspective on just about everything. Teach your kids to live their lives with an attitude full of thanksgiving so they can focus on what God has provided and not on what others have that they don't. It's impossible to be jealous and thankful at the same time.

• Model an attitude of gratefulness for your kids. If you're always bemoaning the things you don't have, your kids will assume that behavior is OK. When you are tempted to be jealous of something someone else has, make a list -- mental or written -- of all the things you have to be thankful for.
• Have your kids make a thankfulness list. Give them a piece of paper and have them write down everything they can think of that they are thankful for. Post the list somewhere and use it as a reminder to be thankful when your kids are tempted to be jealous of what others have.
• Have a thankfulness day. Give everyone a little notebook and a pen. Tell them to write down everything they are thankful for during the day. At the end of the day have everyone share what they wrote. This is a great way for your kids to see how much they truly have for which they can be thankful.
• Express your gratefulness by making thanksgiving a specific part of your prayers. Encourage your kids to thank God every day in prayer for different things.

When you create an attitude of gratitude in your home, selfishness and jealousy will take a back seat. When we begin to view the little things in our lives as things for which we can be grateful, we take the focus off of ourselves and put it on God, our provider. Begin creating a grateful attitude in your home today and watch the atmosphere in your home change.