Welcome to the very first “I’m Blessed” blog party. It’s a time to reflect on God’s direct hand in our lives. It’s an opportunity to document the things He does for us. We are all blessed, though we don’t always notice.
I actually came up with this idea for the Blessed party, and then it dawned on me that I’d have to write a post about what has been blessing me this last week. So I was on the look out for what God wanted to show me. At the same time, I was (am) a little self conscience about this post.
It started with Knut moving his grandma into a new apartment. It’s a good move since Knut’s grandpa’s death last December, as she’ll be closer to a lot of her friends and have easier access to friends and activities in the winter. Still it was an emotional move for her. She was downsizing, and was getting rid of a lot of stuff. All of her sewing stuff somehow made their way to our house. From dozens of packages to vintage rick-rack and other trimmings that I drooled over, to an entire box of saved shoulder pads, the boxes had about everything you could imagine. There was buried treasure in the boxes I got, but some not-so-useable things as well.
What I’m trying to say is that I had been given this awesome blessing of a boxes of zippers, and bindings, and yards of fusible interfacing, and over-the-top-amazing vintage buttons and my first thought was: “This is awesome…but I guess now I have to magically find time to go through this all, figure out what I’m keeping, organize it and find places to put it in my already packed sewing room, which wouldn’t be overflowing if I actually had time to sew!!!”
The huge blessing of vintage sewing things that you can’t even buy these days made me a grump. I was grumpy because my blessing involved work.
I soon found a pattern in my “blessing list”:
I have the blessing of a big farm house, and I complain about how I have to clean it.
I have 4 beautiful children and I complain when I have to discipline them.
I have fresh produce in my garden and I complain about weeding.
We have so many beautiful clothes and I complain about the laundry.
Sometimes I wonder why God continues to bother blessing me. Blessing me in the first place…a sinner not deserving of anything, is mercy and grace poured out. The fact that he keeps blessing even though I complain because His blessings almost always involve work.
So I guess after narrowing it down, I’m blessed that God still has hope for me.
There are some blessings, too, that I can’t help but tear up over:
–seeing my husband thoroughly enjoy our children. He can’t get Solveig in his arms fast enough when he gets home from work. He is always reading them books, talking to them about life, showing them how to do things, and planning fun family events. At the end of the day, he’s never in a rush to get them to bed like I am. He’ll stay in their room and wrap his big arms around them until they fall asleep if they ask him.
I cannot state enough how much watching him be a father has blessed me.
So much healing for me. So much blessing.
–having my brother visit me this last weekend. There’s something about someone who comes from the same stock as you. He shares my history. We can talk until the middle of the night over stuff that matters. There’s nothing about me that would surprise or shock him, and through our differences, we always hold each other up as best as we can. This truly blessed me this last week. (It didn’t hurt that he helped me make a lot of homemade jam.)
Please leave your blessings below in the comments or link your site to share with others. As a reminder, those who participate either by leaving a comment or adding a link to your own “I’m Blessed” post will be entered into the drawing for these prizes. For linking rules (there’s not a lot) you might want to take a quick look here.
You may not have the exact same blessings as me. God gives blessings to us custom made. Let’s praise Him together.
CJ Olson says
June 20, 2011 at 8:48 amThank you Gretchen for doing this post!! It has helped me start the week off right! Reminding me to count my blessing and name them one by one! Thank you for your blog and the encouragement it provides to me.
http://cjolson.blogspot.com/2011/06/im-blessed.html
Anonymous says
June 20, 2011 at 1:48 pmI’m blessed to have wonderful immediate and extended family. I love to spend time with them talking and doing fun things together. My big blessing is that in the next two weeks, we have 4 family members moving to our town: Chris’ brother and his wife, my sister and my Grandpa! We look forward to many new memories being made this summer and in the months to come. 🙂 ~Heather Krupa
Mom says
June 20, 2011 at 1:53 pmI don’t have a blog to link, but I am so blessed that God has given me a loving family, starting with my aging, but godly parents, a loving husband who adopted out family when we were all very wounded, beautiful children who are in various stages of allowing God’s grace to mold them into beautiful vessels to be used for his glory, awesome son-in-laws and gorgeous grandchildren (who are being raised by godly parents.) The legacy continues and it’s all God.
j&kronnevik says
June 20, 2011 at 3:02 pmGretchen what a GREAT idea! I will definetly be joining your I’m Blessed posts weekly!
Of course I did what you said not to do. I linked my blog page to yours NOT the Blessed post. I did a second one linking the Blessed post so you can delete the first 🙂 Sorry…
Gretchen R says
June 20, 2011 at 3:45 pmNo, Kristin, that’s good! Now I actually have to figure out how to delete one. Just say you were purposely being my guinea pig. 😉
Hopefully I did it right…
Leingang Family says
June 20, 2011 at 3:47 pmThanks for doing this! I just posted my link above. What a fun way to start out my week!!!
Penny says
June 20, 2011 at 4:26 pmWhat a great idea! Today is very busy, so I didn’t go into too much (okay, not really any) details, but I did get to think about it today! Thanks for such a great idea.
Kristen says
June 20, 2011 at 5:53 pmGreat idea Gretch!
Matt and Julie says
June 20, 2011 at 7:36 pmI participated on my blog (which is private) and hope to continue. I have plenty of blessings to blog about! Thank you for giving me the extra push to sit and think about the many, many ways in which God has blessed me and my little family!
Helen says
June 20, 2011 at 9:28 pmWhat a nice way to start the week…I agree that so often we frame our blessings in the negative. It is refreshing to take a moment to realize how blessed we are.
Anonymous says
June 20, 2011 at 10:01 pmBlessed because the Spirit of God knows me so well and I’m remembeing (more often) that I really don’t have to explain things to Him.
Blessed because in going through boxes getting ready to move, I’m finding wonderful books, photos and mementos, some which go back almost 100 years, which are evidence of God’s blessing in our family line.
Blessed, because our two adult sons (in their 40’s) love us and like to talk with us.
Blessed because I keep getting a decent number of hits on my blog even though since the house sold so quickly my writing has gone out the window, so things aren’t being published as regularly. Here’s the link: http://mailboxesandoldbarns.com/ (My blog is just a record of God’s blessing in our heritage/family and daily life on the farm in the 50’s…..it’s a record for those who follow us in 20-50 years if the Lord tarries, more than it’s a “daily communication” about “now.” Hope that makes some sense…)
I’m sure I didn’t do this right, Gretchen, but I’m blessed anyway! I’ve been blessed with Psalm 18 this weekend as I’ve been using that Psalm as a prayer guide praying for a friend who asked. I LOVE Psalm 18: There’s a beginning “petition series” in vv. 1-6. Then take a look at what happens in v. 7!! Yeeee—-haaawwww! Here comes my God! ~~~Sharon
Melissa says
June 21, 2011 at 12:06 amI’ve been looking forward to this! And I forgot to mention on my post that when Dennis called me when I was half-way through my cup of coffee this morning to ask me to come chase heifers, I didn’t even get crabby. I just went and got the job done with our son, Isaiah.
Yay for me and praise God for His work in me when I have asked Him to help me respond better to everyone’s needs.
Flo says
June 21, 2011 at 3:00 amGretchen,
I love the message you wrote. My devotional today was about using our mouth for the powerful purpose God gave it: to share encouragement. And if we can’t say the words, we certainly write them down! I think you did just that today and it was nice to see an example. I’m blessed because of people like you in the world who are faithful followers of and passionate believers in Christ. I look forward to catching up on where life has led you over the years!
Blessings to you,
Jamie
Angie says
June 21, 2011 at 5:30 amWhen I saw you were doing this Blessing blog party it inspired me to finally start up my blog that I’ve been contemplating for awhile now. I wanted my first ever post to give glory to God. 🙂 My blog says I posted it last week — since I’m new to this blog thing I don’t know why it says that because I truly posted it today!? I did start writing it last week… oh well, lots to learn in the world of blogging! I wanted you to know that reading your blog is a blessing. 🙂
Kris says
June 21, 2011 at 6:58 amThank you for posting this. I’ve been quietly following your blog for a little while and this was a great reminder to me that there re so many blessing in my life that I need to reflect on.
Mama Bear says
June 21, 2011 at 7:46 pmI just missed the linky party! I was trying to write mine all day, but kept getting distracted by things like…well, you know…work and life and kids and stuff. Argh! Well, there’s always next week, but come by and see what I wrote!