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Blessings come in packages we are often not expecting. What we may want for ourselves, and what we end up with are often very different things. Whether it is divine providence, serendipity, chance, luck, destiny, fate or a combination of these or none of them at all, life twists us and turns us in directions we often would not have chosen for ourselves.
It is a too real fact that life can result in tragedies and ordeals that can leave us floundering for days, months, or even years. Eventually, things tend to balance out, and we may encounter an upswing in our situation that comes as unexpected as the downturn.
Reminding ourselves of these ebbs and flows, these plummeting dives and soaring ascensions, keeps us from taking both our failures and our successes too seriously. We more often live in the middle of these extremes, and it is there where life takes on its meaning and purpose, if not its joys and sorrows.
But blessings, ironically, are not found in just the good times; they are also abundant in the challenging ones as well. They may be more difficult to detect, but they abide nonetheless.
Little gifts are available for perceiving if only we have eyes to see and ears to hear. And keeping an open mind and staying positive makes them even more apparent. But blessings don’t only come to us. We can help bring them into being.
It is appreciating what we have, making the most out of our circumstances, and receiving life itself as a blessing that helps us to remain motivated and keeps us focused on how we ourselves can be a blessing where we are.
We can create blessings in the most harrowing of circumstances. Our very determination and resolve to counter the bad with good, and to respond to vice with virtue, is itself a blessing. It is our spiritual resilience which helps us to keep persevering, come what may. This is a blessing we create for ourselves and those around us no matter our prosperity or lack thereof.
Every occasion to be grateful for what one has, to be thankful for the positives that persist and glad that the negatives are not more overwhelming than they already are, lifts our spirit above our current condition.
To relish some aspect of life, even when the whole of it seems daunting, inspires us to live in humble reverence of that greater part of our lives which is not in our control, and in proud appreciation for that lesser part which we have faithfully pursued and cultivated.
Whether it be our achievements, or our attitudes in winning or defeat, we have an opportunity to let our lives be light -- both to ourselves and to others. And the more we recognize that the extremes we experience are less our own doing, the greater will be our light.
We shine brightest when we are less concerned in having others see the light we have in us and more concerned with the light that helps them to see their own life more clearly. The best friends and companions in life are those who simply look to make one’s own life pleasant and fulfilling, and not those who are seeking to make their own life most pleasant and fulfilled.
Selflessness breeds light. Working for the common good rather than one’s own good is how our lives are most luminescent.
In this time when darkness is slowly succumbing to more and more light as the days draw longer, we perhaps should take time to reflect on the blessings we have here and now, and on how we can better be a blessing. Perhaps we will discover that the best blessings we ourselves receive are the blessings we seek to give to, and nurture in, others.
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