Counting my Blessings.

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I don't know how I go from that place of despair to that place of  "oh, I like being here, this is where I usually am, even if it is not too exciting". When I get there I look back and say something to the effect of "damned if I want to go there again." Inevitably I will.

But in the meantime, I will not overanalyze how I got here, which word of wisdom struck me, which ephiphany guided me or which pill worked.

These are the moments in which I remember to count my blessings.

• These are the moments in which I purposely drive my children through the poor neighborhoods and tell them to look around, for "there but for the grace of God, go I."
• These are the moments in which I put some leftover food out for the skinny cats.
• These are the moments in which I feel rewarded by the volunteer work I do.
• These are the moments in which I know that no matter what I don't have, I have my health.
• These are the moments in which I know that no matter what my bank account is missing, I have the wherewithall to replace it.
• These are the moments in which I know that I don't need a lot of friends, but I have the best friends a person could ask for.
• These are the moments in which 60 steps to my apartment are a gift and not a burden because I have a mortgage I can afford.
• These are the moment in which I don't care that my children didn't bring home straight A's because my children always came home.
• These are the moments in which I miss my family but know that they are only a phone call away.
• These are the moments in which I am grateful to my cleaning girl  for allowing me to help her send money back to her family in India.  And if the house is clean, it is a fringe benefit.
• These are the moments in which I will stop complaining that my son is growing a scraggly beard after the army, because he has came home from the army. And I wonder, how do the parents of Gilad Shalit sleep at night?
• These are the moments that I will not complain that there are dishes in the sink, because I am grateful that I can feed my children.
• These are the moments in which I don't care that I didn't exercise today, because my day was filled with giving to others.
• These are the moments in which I don't care if the house is rife with adolescent hormones because I have been blessed with children.

Thank goodness I have never needed an addiction recovery program. But their motto is mine. It is posted next to my desk at home and folded up into a small square in my wallet:

"God grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change; COURAGE to change the things I can; and WISDOM to know the difference."

Amen.


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