My friend Emma had a
tough life. She lost her husband to an accident when her four boys were young.
Never having expected to be the sole support of her family, she leveraged her
skill as a seamstress into a living income that kept a roof over her kids’ heads,
food in their bellies, and eventually helped send all four through college. It
wasn’t easy, but it worked. And so did Emma, every day of her life.
Emma was one of the
most consistently cheerful people I have ever known. Although the first time I
met her, she had one of the boys in her Sunday School class in a headlock,
(trust me on this, it was the compassionate response to the problem at hand)
Emma was a kind, accepting, peaceful woman of her generation, a person who got
up every morning, put on her big girl support stockings and sallied forth to
meet the day on her terms.
Her secret? She lived
by the words that she taught every single kid who came through her Sunday
School class:
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise what the Lord has done![1]
I think of Emma often
these days, and wonder what she would have made of the constant barrage of bad
news that fills the newspapers, cable TV, Twitter, and Facebook. I don't know about you, but
it weighs me down. I woke up the morning after the Super Bowl, feeling so good and
wondering why. It hit me that I had spent a full six hours having a great time
(sorry, Patriots fans) not worrying for a moment about nuclear proliferation,
race relations, sexual misconduct and assault, gun violence, and the general
miserable state of the Union.
I know I could turn off
the news, not read the paper, disconnect from Twitter and Facebook. And I do, sometimes.
I take long walks. I meditate. I pray. I read murder mysteries where the good guys always win. I watch Chip and Jo fix up Waco, Texas, like it’s my job.
I take long walks. I meditate. I pray. I read murder mysteries where the good guys always win. I watch Chip and Jo fix up Waco, Texas, like it’s my job.
But this Lenten season,
I am adding something else. I’m taking a page out of Emma’s book and starting
my day counting my blessings. As it turns out, I have so many to pick from.
Maybe you do, too.
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