I’m Blessed

Sometimes I get so focused on what needs to get done, the problems at hand, or the work of daily life that I forget to see the blessings.  If you’re like me, it’s good to have a scheduled moment to take the time and notice God working in my daily life.  If you’d like to join me, either leave a comment, or a link to your “I’m Blessed” post by following the simple guidelines here.

As I’ve been saying this past week, my parents have been visiting us.  Today they will leave on a jet plane and head back to sunny Arizona.  I can’t say enough how blessed we were to have them here.

The routine of daily life often got thrown to the wind as often happens when Knut is home, more so than my parents being here!  Knut comes up with fun ideas…often at the last minute.  We tend to have a routine to our day when he’s at work and all routine is thrown to the wind when he has time off…a transition I do not always handle gracefully.  This last week I tried really hard to go with the flow and enjoy our time together as a family.  The kids can sleep later, right?

Although a messed routine always has its consequences, it does have upsides.  Here’s my quick list of all the things we got to do that were worth every moment of the consequences that followed:

-Knut convinced us all to get a sitter for the older kids so that the adults (Mom, Papa, Knut and I) as well as a very sleepy Solveig could go to a “Hymn Sing” party to say farewell to some dear friends of ours who were moving out of state.  (Silje’s godparents and the people who gave us our piano).  Many people from our church gathered in someone’s home and my dear friend Sharon took requests as the hymn books were passed around and we sang for hours, stopped for a dessert (like good Lutherans), and sang some more.  I think I can speak for the group that we left there feeling very blessed.  I wish we had that kind of Christian fellowship every day.

-One of my mom’s cousins who lives a few hours away showed up at church.  He didn’t know that we went to church there, but I guess their (he and his wife’s) lake cabin was not too far from us.  They looked up our church in the phone book and decided to visit it for the morning.  Little did he know that his cousin from across the country was visiting, and that her daughter (me) went to the church they decided to visit.  It was a spontaneous reunion, and we got to eat some Chinese food with them and then they invited us for a very quick pre-nap visit to their cabin.  Totally messed with the nap routine and so worth it. 

-We left for an overnight at the lake.  Solveig was not so keen on the idea and decided to scream in the evening for quite some time (the consequences I spoke of before).  However, with all the huge chores Knut has been doing during this stay-cation, it was the first time I had seen him relax all week.  It was like being by the water calmed his whole body.  That relaxation and fun that he felt rubbed off on all of us (except Solveig) and I think it was just the ticket for all of us.  We’re so blessed to have a shared family cabin that we can use.

So…don’t forget to say how God has seen you through this last week with those little (and big!) blessings.  God gives blessings custom made.  What were your blessings this last week?  (If you have trouble coming up with some, take a look at the other good blog posts listed below.)