Count your blessings

Name them one by one

Count your blessings

Sing what God has done

Count your blessings

Name them one by one

And it will surprise you what the Lord has done!

Never were truer words sung. I love this music. If you want to listen to the Nigerian rendition I’m used to hearing, you can find it here (watch the YouTube video!).

Often, you can have one day or one negative moment in your day or week and suddenly life sucks. Everything is awful. Nothing ever goes right in life! I never get what I want! Why is life so unfair? Blah blah…

I have these moments so often. Thankfully, they are often (not always) just that – moments, blips, less than 1 minute bursts of negative excitement. Life gets overwhelming at times. Or worse, life get underwhelming at times! Like that feeling of just strolling through life going through the motions, nodding your head when you’re supposed to, speaking at the right moments, everything is just so routine. And yes, I’m using that like a bad word! Routine. Boring. Mundane.

But whether life is overwhelming or underwhelming, you don’t have to be dictated by that. Appreciate all you have in life, and your life starts to look a whole lot more interesting, exciting and purposeful.

There are so many words for this part of the happiness formula – gratitude journal, thanks list, daily blessings journal – but whatever you name it, count your blessings.

When you’re down, count your blessings.

When you wake up and you feel like your today is gonna suck, count your blessings.

When you get into a car crash and life feels so unfair, count your blessings. Are you uninjured? Is your car drivable? If there is an injury, what else can you be thankful for? Maybe it could have been so much worse than expected. Maybe you can’t fully assess the damage right away, but staying hopeful and optimistic is better than immediately descending into sour, Negative Nancy. Isn’t it?

When you fail an exam, count your blessings. Clearly you didn’t know everything you need to know to be successful in that area of work, life, driving, whatever the case may be. So, be thankful for the opportunity to go again and be even better the next time around. Not every failure is final. Thankfully!

So here are my top ten blessings I’m counting in today’s gratitude journal:

1. A lovely large warm comfy bed in the most beautiful home in Phoenix
2. Being out in Phoenix in the sunshine
3. Coaching & therapy at one of the best facilities in the world for athletic excellence
4. My cooking and baking skills
5. God’s grace.
6. Support from my sponsors, family and friends towards the attainment of my athletics’ goals
7. A stranger’s smile
8. My church – Audacious, and being able to access a church wherever I am in the world. (Cheers, Google!)
9. Praise and prayer. It keeps me sane.
10. Being able to let go of the uncontrollable in my life, and let God move.

What are your top ten blessings? I dare you to count them now and immediately feel your spirit lighten. Go for it. Count your blessings, one by one…

P.S. you don’t have to stop counting at ten!

P.P.S. As I saved this entry, I checked the date and noticed it is 11.11.15.

Veteran’s Day, as they refer to it in the USA. But, as a Brit, this is Remembrance Day, observed to recall the end of hostilities of World War I on 11^th November 1918, and ‘at the 11^th hour’ (11am) a 2 minute silence is held. I missed it in the UK, because of the time difference, but I’ll observe it at 11am here.

And that’s another blessing to add to my journal – I am grateful for the service of the men who died during WWI, and the countless service men and women who have died to protect our nation.

Lest we forget.