Count your blessings

One of my favorite old hymns is “Count Your Blessings.” As we approach Thanksgiving, I find myself thinking more and more about gratitude and counting my blessings; however, I wonder why it takes a month or a day to act as a reminder.

This year (as I make the mistake of reading comments on social media), I wonder if we have forgotten how to be grateful, how to practice gratitude.

I recently heard someone say that we are more likely to remember negative comments or events than positive ones. I saw a challenge that encouraged people to write down five positive things each day. People could fill a page with complaints, but could rarely find one positive or good thing to say.

The anger and negativity fed more anger and negativity.  What is difficult is finding the positives in the world around us, focusing on the good.

We can begin by examining what we are feeding our minds. Just as feeding our bodies unhealthy diets can lead to physical illness, so too does a steady diet of hate speech, anger, and negativity lead to mental and spiritual illness. The prescription in Philippians 4:8 is to dwell on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable – anything that is excellent or praiseworthy.  If what we read, listen to, or watch fills us with anger and causes us to spew hateful words, we need to change our diet.

Let us practice the art of thankfulness. We can begin by counting our blessings and sharing them with others, by remembering to say “please” and “thank you.” by slowing down and simply enjoying the simpler things in life, by practicing random acts of kindness.

If we can focus more on what is beautiful and praiseworthy, we will be happier and so will those around us.

Count your blessings. You will be surprised by how beautiful life really is.

Rev. Joyce Acree is the pastor at Demorest Methodist-Congregational Federated Church.