Everyone is busy and hustling. I sense panic in the air mixed with the sense of fear. “Is this the original intent of these holiday times?”, I ask myself. We ALL know the answer to the question. It is a resounding “No.”
Unfortunately, we have possibly allowed life’s greatest celebratory times to become life’s most draining, exhausting, and painful times. At a time when we should be giving verbal gifts of thanks and tangible gifts of love, we see this time becoming a time of taking away.
Allow me to change your perspective.
Allow me to change your perspective and give you the ability to appreciate once again the concept and meaning of the the word ‘gift.’ We have all been given life. What an amazing gift! Simply the ability to read this article is an unexplainable miracle.
Therefore, if you can see, you have reason to celebrate. As you read this article from a computer, you are considered one of the wealthiest people in history. You have a computer. That, again, is reason to celebrate. If you have food in your refrigerator, you are not going to starve. I would venture to guess you have tremendous surplus.
Wow, let the celebration continue!
If your roof does not leak, you are most blessed. Many across the world don’t have this luxury. You, my friend, are fortunate. And…you can raise your celebratory glass again.
Let the celebration roll on as you look in your closet and see enough clothes to clothe a small army. There is no shortage of transportation, is there? Do you have a car? If you do, you are really in rare company. After all, how many persons in the history of the world have really owned a car?
You may say, “Well, everybody has these things today!” I agree, in our country today, these things are commonplace. However, let me slap some reality on you: you could have been born at a different time in history. Therefore, even the time in which you were born is a gift.
This gift of life is a huge deal.
If you have fallen into the trap of ‘unrecognized blessing,’ let me encourage you to stop letting seasons of gifts and thanks be seasons of take and pain. Change the perspective now by re-reading this as much as is needed. Read it out loud if you need. If this doesn’t change your perspective, you probably didn’t read it at all.
I am grateful for so much. God has been so good to me. His love and gift of life is more amazing that I can even imagine. And guess what? He gave it to you too.
