A New Year – 2022! Looking for Blessings

I cannot even believe 2022 is here already. Life seems to be on fast forward these days.

So many beautiful things happened this year. There were trials and pains but we’re still standing! God saw us through and He promised to never leave us nor forsake us. He promised all things would work for our good and that, my friends, is what I’m hanging on to.

I want to be able to focus on all the good things God has done for me. If I do that will I not learn to see and recognize Him in the ordinary everyday? In the moments that are special but maybe not glittery and flashy?

He, after all, is the Creator and giver of every good gift – not just the big obvious ones but also the little ones.

I have a choice. I can choose to be grateful for the many little things God blesses my life with or I can choose to put my focus on all the things I wish were different.

I admit I’m a little weak and wimpy in this area of my life, I need to work on this. Just like when we haven’t used a muscle for a while and it gets weak and flabby, this gratitude and looking for the good can be forgotten as we strengthen the complaining and the bitter sharpness of regret and disappointment. It takes a whole shifting of the mind.

Reflect

Reflection can open our eyes to see there really were blessings even though we may not be attentive in the moment. Ann Voskamp has made a practice of writing her gratitudes every single day no matter how simple they may seem. When we look for joys and blessings, we might be surprised how many we have that we’ve overlooked or maybe we even brushed off in times past because it came to us in such a simple way it passed by unnoticed.

Joys and Blessings are All Around Us if We Open Our Eyes

Let that not be my story in 2022. Help me, Lord to notice the many bountiful blessings you send my way. You came to this earth so simply. You are so vast and great but yet dwell in simplicity too. You are everything. All the big and all the little and everything in between.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above… James 1:17

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. Psalms 100:4

Noticing the good does not mean there won’t be bad things happen to us or that hurts will bypass us. It is no guarantee that life’s circumstances will be different but I think if we follow the Holy Bible and the wisdom it gives us we will feel differently.

 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. II Timothy 1:7

A Challenge

Write at least one thing a day that you are thankful for and then watch the accumulation of your blessings as the days, weeks and year go by. I wonder… if you are in a trying situation would it be even better to help you in overcoming if you were to think of positive things about that particular issue howbeit a crumb.

If you are one that does that already, I would love to hear from you and if you have seen it affect your attitude for the better.

God bless you each one in 2022!

May we be encouraged, uplifted and know that the Heavenly Father is right with us… always.