Blessing Jar

This morning, I am reading my new book that came in the mail yesterday. Chicken Soup for the Christian Woman's Soul. This story really spoke to my heart and I would like to share it with you.
Psalms 50:14-15 reads, "Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."

Life hadn't been so easy. In fact, the list of tragic events and difficulties ran longer than my grocery list. I felt exhausted. Yet my strength was needed to hold together the pieces of the stress-free life my family once knew.

   "Why do I have to take four shots a day?" Jenna Marie, my kindergartner, asked repeatedly. The explanation of being diagnosed with juvenile diabetes didn't seem to justify her.

   "Just how big is the tank that Uncle Rusty is driving? How far away is the Gulf War? Who is that guy Saddam anyway?" my four-year-old son questioned.

   Beep, beep, beep-- the steady rhythm of my premature baby's heart monitor echoed in the background. This was our moment by moment reminder of how fragile life really is. 

   Marty, my husband, and I had learned to expect the unexpected. It seemed we had anticipated the bad, and braced ourselves for it. We had lost our focus. The challenges of life so overwhelmed us that we weren't seeing the blessings God provided us daily. 

   As a family, we were reading of God's faithfulness to David, Joseph, and Moses. 

   "Why can't we read about God's faithfulness to us, the Mitchells?" our children asked. At a loss for words, I looked to my husband. 

   After a long moment of silence he said, "We can and we will. Jenna, you go get the special note card out of Daddy's drawer in the study. Jason, you go get the box of crayons and markers."

   The children hurried off, full of excitement. Daddy had an idea, and they couldn't wait to hear it. I sat pondering, wondering what my "non-seminarian" husband might be thinking.

    When my children returned we all sat Indian-style on the family room floor. Everyone sat quietly, all eyes on Daddy as he began to speak:

   "There are times in our lives that we don't always see God's blessings right away. Sometimes they are disguised, and the things we once thought of as bad, or scary, turn into a wonderful blessing. Think of the caterpillar. He isn't very pretty. And I wonder if Mr. Caterpillar screams, 'Let me out of here! I  can't breathe!' But then one day, just at the right time, we see something happening. We see God's plan, the miracle of a beautiful butterfly."

   Reaching for the note cars that Jenna clutched tightly in her hands, Marty continued. "Tonight, we're going to think back and remember how God has taken care of us and blessed our family over the past few years. Then we are going to write these blessings on my special note cards." 

   "But Daddy, we can't write words," Jason said.

   "We couldn't read them even if we wrote them!" Jenna chimed in.

   "You're right," Daddy replied. "But you can draw." 

   For the next half-hour our family remembered, drew, laughed, and even shed a few tears as we recorded God's faithfulness to the Mitchells. After tucking the children into bed and saying goodnight to Marty, I went out to the garage, dug around a cluttered shelf and found an old dusty pickle jar. I found an old set of puffy-paint I'd purchased months ago when the children painted t-shirts. On the side of the old jar, I painted, "Our Blessing Jar." I gathered the note cards, folded them in half, and dropped each one into the jar. Finding a colorful ribbon, I tied it into a bow around the lid as if it were a present, leaving it as the centerpiece on the kitchen table. Before I finally went to bed, I placed another stack of Daddy's special note cards alongside the jar.

   The next morning the children found their way to the breakfast table. "What's this?" they said while opening the lid.

   "Its our blessings. We have a Blessing Jar."

   "Let's see how many blessings we can think of today!"

Jenna shouted with excitement.

   "You know, Daddy says that God is the one who gives the blessing. We just need to keep track of them," Jason reported.

   And for the past ten years we have. Our children now read for themselves their stories of God's faithfulness to David, Joseph and Moses. They have learned to trust when they can't see past their cocoons. Tonight I added another blessing to the Mitchell family's Blessing Jar. 

   "Lord," I wrote." Thanks for the nights when all seemed dark, when challenges knocked on our door like a regular visitor. Thanks for the special note cards and crayons. And thanks for giving us a way to read about Your faithfulness to the Mitchells!"

This really made me think about the blessings in my life. It is true, through every hard time, every rough day, ever challenge that the Lord gives us, there is a blessing!