I’m Blessed

Sometimes it’s hard to see the blessing.  Other times it comes like an avalanche.  Still other times, it’s like steady rain.  It’s raining here…metaphorically, that is.

It’s easy to feel blessed when the season is that of reaping.  When the work of the summer is paying off in dividends of amazing produce in the kitchen everyday to work with.

It’s easy to feel blessed when the crop on the farm looks good at this point.

How can you not feel blessed when your routine to close in the chickens after the kids are in bed starts to change.  Now when I go for my little walk around the yard, I bring cutters with me for one of my favorite kinds of harvests.  Pretty soon though, the chickens will start getting shut in before the kids go to bed.  The sun is going down quick these days.

I love the change to a new season.  I may even love it more than the season itself.  The change to fall is a lovely one.

I’m blessed to have gotten a visit from my sweet friend this last week.  She gave me some much needed perspective, and she probably does not even realize how much of a blessing she is to me.

I heard Knut talk to one of his good friends at church yesterday.  His friend asked what he’d been up to.  Knut said he’s been spending a lot of time cutting wood for the winter.  His friend laughed and said “Everytime I talk to you, it’s like I’m talking to someone from the 1800s!”

I love our 1800s life.  I know most people heat their house by turning a dial.  I like working with a fire every few hours in the winter.  It’s so enjoyable.  I like having it in the background when I read to the kids.  I’m so blessed with this life and I am still pinching myself.  Still!

There is a lot of work in the season we are in, and even more work in the season that we are approaching.  The corn is beginning to change color, and the soy beans will not be far.  I have yet to meet a farmer who will not harvest because the harvest involves too much work.  As I look at blessings as they are described in the Bible, I see how closely God ties blessings and work.  God’s salvation requires no work, but that does not mean that His blessings often involve work. He knows how we are designed, and he knows we do not do well when we’re idle.

I always find it so funny that the verse often linking children with blessing is this: “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.” (Psalm 127:3)  The funny part is the words just before that verse are: “for he grants sleep to those he loves.”  Surely God would know that having sons and having sleep do not usually go together.  When I think of the energy of my children, and the work they require, I do not think of sleep.  Well, I dream of sleep, and vaguely remember how much I used to get.

God blesses us with work.  He has cattle on a thousand hills, and those cattle require work.  Wealth, blessings, children, health…all require work.  That work becomes almost an act of worship, of us accepting this amazing gift from him.  Those who do not have work these difficult days will tell you how much they long for it.  I think some school kids may even admit that they can’t wait for school to start because the work is good.

We are busy.  We are blessed.  I’d love if you’d share how you are blessed, too.