Count Your Many Blessings

I heard several different stories yesterday that served to remind me how lucky I am. I feel the need to list out a few of the many, many blessings I have.

My family is certainly a blessing. My parents are wonderful people who bless the lives of everyone they run into. They quickly adopted each of our spouses into the family, treating them like their own children. And I can't even begin to count all of our childhood friends who at one point were able to consider my parents as an extra set of their own parents. Now that I can see them from an adult perspective, I have nothing but respect for them and their parenting techniques. I am blessed to be their child, and now their friend as well.

I have also been blessed with many siblings. Not only was I blessed with three natural ones, but I have now inherited three more through the marriages of my siblings and three more through my marriage to my husband. They are all great aunts and uncles to Patrick.

I certainly can't forget my new parents. I was blessed many times over when I married Matt, but one of the big ones would be his parents. They adopted me as a daughter the first time they met me, long before Matt and I were considering marriage. That means I'm blessed with not one, but two wonderful sets of parents.

Although I don't have oodles of friends, the ones I do have are a blessing. Whether they are high school friends, college friends, or even more recent friends, maybe friends I've re-met online, they are an encouragement to me. I'm even blessed with friends that I don't call nearly often enough but still seem to love me for who I am.

I realize every day what a blessing Patrick is. When I think of how he is a miracle baby four times over (a statistically impossible conception, two almost-miscarriages, and premature birth), I know he is a blessing God had in mind specifically for me, no matter what my body had to say about it. Every smile he flashes my way is a blessing, as well as every breath he takes. Even each scream or cry is a blessing, merely because he can. It's a blessing he can tell me he is in pain, and it is a blessing to be able to try to take away his pain, even when all I can do is hold him close and cry with him. It is a blessing to watch as he reaches each milestone and a blessing just to be with him another moment.

The biggest blessing in my life, though, is my husband. I thought for so long that I would never find the right man for me, and I feared having to settle if I ever wanted to get married. Instead, I met Matt. He is the perfect man for me, and being married to him is a blessing every day. He is a blessing the way he takes care of me when I don't feel good and even when I do. It is a blessing to go to sleep next to him and wake up next to him. It is a blessing just to sit near each other doing different things and not even talking. And it is a blessing the way he loves me without fail, even when I'm selfish or just being silly.

It is a blessing just to wake up each morning. And it is a blessing each morning that every person I loves wakes as well. Each day I am given on this earth is a blessing to me, and I hope I can remember that with each day I'm given. I know I'm unworthy of all these blessings, but I am grateful I am also blessed with a God generous enough to give me these blessings anyway.