I believe that most people could come up with a list of hundreds of blessings if they took the time to think about them.
Some of my greatest blessings sure didn’t feel like blessings at the time they happened. For example, having my fiance’ leave me for another man was devastating at the time, but about a year later my Beloved came into my life–and has made it better ever since. Had I been married to my original fiance’ I’d have missed the love of my life.
I encourage people to take another, closer look at events and experiences that they’ve carried in their minds as some of their biggest or worst “disasters”, “failures”, and “heart-breaks”.
I believe that when people do this they are likely to find that some of their greatest blessings and gifts ultimately came from such painful experiences.
Sometimes it just takes awhile and an open mind to find out what good came from them.
In such awareness, gratitude grows.
Russ
Russ Towne's A Grateful Man 
As hard as it may be to realize that sometimes the universe has even better plans for us than we could anticipate ourselves. Hindsight provides a great deal of clarity and belief in tomorrow’s promise can sustain each of us while we wait to see what will happen next…
That has certainly been true in my case. Thank you for sharing your insights, Mimi.
Russ
So true, Russ, thank you so much for the reminder! It actually made me think of an old Taoist story that goes something like:
‘One day a farmer’s horse ran away. When his neighbors heard they said, “Such bad luck.” The farmer just said “Maybe.” The next morning his horse came back with three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” his neighbors said. “Maybe,” said the farmer. The next day his son tried to ride one of the wild horses, but he was thrown and broke his leg. At this point his neighbors figured he had just about the worst luck ever. But the farmer just said “Maybe.” Then a few days later, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Since the farmer’s son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. All the neighbors who’s sons were drafted congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe,” he smiled.’
I love that story. Thank you for sharing it, Andrea. It might make for a good blog post if you haven’t already done so.
Maybe.
Russ
🙂 Maybe it would! If you have the inspiration, you are welcome to use the idea…otherwise perhaps I’ll save it for a rainy day!
I believe this is true so much so that I don’t usually even feel the need to investigate!
Me too! Strangely though, I’m not yet quite so convinced that when “disasters”, “failures”, and “heart-breaks” occur I find myself cheering wildly and yelling bring on ’em on! See? I told you that I’m a slow learner!
This student of life has a LOT more to learn!
Russ
I don’t cheer it on either, but I console myself with the faith that I have. Once when I was 19 I was supposed to catch a ride on a motorcycle to go to some bar I was really looking forward to going to. The phone rang and it was my mom and I missed my ride and was pretty upset about not going to this bar. The young man who I was supposed to meet for the ride (I found out the next day) rode his bike into a poll and was killed instantly…I believe it was on that day that I decided that missing something might not be a bad thing…so now when flights are delayed, etc…I always wonder…you know?
I hear you. Wow! That’s quite a story. I’ve heard similar stories about flights, the Titanic, and even elevators. I often wonder about such things too.
I’m selfish so I’m grateful that you weren’t on that motorcycle that day! Otherwise I would never have had the opportunity to “meet” you.
See how I’m always thinking of others? ;-D!
Russ