More than Counting Life's Blessings
"Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. This is an omen."
This is the message written in the Christmas gift card that one of my good friends, Leah, gave to me last Christmas. The gift came on the heels of one of our intimate exchanges where I shared with her my excitement about an upcoming trip to the UK and the anxiety over the possibility of my visa not being released in time for the scheduled trip.
I struggled with seeing the wish in a positive light as the word omen tends to have a negative connotation. Like many spells cast by my witchy friend, however, I would soon realize that her Christmas wish for me would come true in more ways than one. Yes, the UK trip pushed through. As the months of 2013 unfold, more experiences of God's goodness have unfolded. In the past months, through my son's experiences, I felt God's showering of abundant blessings again. Very recently, I found myself accepted in a new job that disproved several of my negative self-talks and views about my competencies and skills. The new job would address several areas of discontent in my life.
As I think about my friend's message, I realize that rather than having more of "the goodness of the Lord" which really flows in our lives every single day, the real message and gift of the wish is to "taste and see," to allow myself to truly experience and savor what I am gifted with.
What this message meant to me personally became even more apparent in one of my exchanges with another good friend. I was ranting about the voluminous tasks of the weeks leading to my last day in my former office, of how I was struggling to do my handover activities while performing my regular tasks in the office. I was making do with less than 4 hours of sleep for a couple of weeks and felt very tired and overwhelmed. In the height of my lamentations, my friend asked, "wala bang magandang nangyayari sa buhay mo?" I felt like he just threw cold water on me then. It was so easy to resort to my old ways of being reactive and accusing him of not listening to me and my feelings. Yet, as I listened to my true Self, I saw the truth in what he was saying.
There I was, blessed with so much, yet I had my eyes fixed on some minor thorns that went with my roses. "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord." That was the wish. That is also the gift I need to open and nurture in my life: to not throw out the baby with the bathwater, to appreciate and celebrate God's abundant blessings and to live through the challenging days of my life holding on to these blessings like a child would hold on to a comfort pillow at night.
This is the message written in the Christmas gift card that one of my good friends, Leah, gave to me last Christmas. The gift came on the heels of one of our intimate exchanges where I shared with her my excitement about an upcoming trip to the UK and the anxiety over the possibility of my visa not being released in time for the scheduled trip.
I struggled with seeing the wish in a positive light as the word omen tends to have a negative connotation. Like many spells cast by my witchy friend, however, I would soon realize that her Christmas wish for me would come true in more ways than one. Yes, the UK trip pushed through. As the months of 2013 unfold, more experiences of God's goodness have unfolded. In the past months, through my son's experiences, I felt God's showering of abundant blessings again. Very recently, I found myself accepted in a new job that disproved several of my negative self-talks and views about my competencies and skills. The new job would address several areas of discontent in my life.
As I think about my friend's message, I realize that rather than having more of "the goodness of the Lord" which really flows in our lives every single day, the real message and gift of the wish is to "taste and see," to allow myself to truly experience and savor what I am gifted with.
What this message meant to me personally became even more apparent in one of my exchanges with another good friend. I was ranting about the voluminous tasks of the weeks leading to my last day in my former office, of how I was struggling to do my handover activities while performing my regular tasks in the office. I was making do with less than 4 hours of sleep for a couple of weeks and felt very tired and overwhelmed. In the height of my lamentations, my friend asked, "wala bang magandang nangyayari sa buhay mo?" I felt like he just threw cold water on me then. It was so easy to resort to my old ways of being reactive and accusing him of not listening to me and my feelings. Yet, as I listened to my true Self, I saw the truth in what he was saying.
There I was, blessed with so much, yet I had my eyes fixed on some minor thorns that went with my roses. "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord." That was the wish. That is also the gift I need to open and nurture in my life: to not throw out the baby with the bathwater, to appreciate and celebrate God's abundant blessings and to live through the challenging days of my life holding on to these blessings like a child would hold on to a comfort pillow at night.
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