My husband never lets me say the blessing over meals, because I pray like a little kid: there are sooooooo many wonderful things to appreciate and tell God about that my prayers just keep going and going. Paul points out that our Preacher friends don't even pray long over meals because they want to eat while the food it hot! LOL!
Once I start thinking about it, though, I become more aware that we are immersed constantly in blessings and grace God has given us. His blessings are thicker than the air we breathe - and we breathe them in with every rich breath, which itself comes from Him.
God's grace pours out continually, the stuff that holds the universe together right here within and surrounding and flowing through us.
The smallest particles of matter explode like popcorn unable to hold the vastness of God's blessing within them.
Counting our blessings is about the future. Every blessing looks forward into a Light that Shines, and has Shone, and will Shine continuously for ever and ever and ever. Counting our blessings is one of the ways we see this beautiful future, and know how very Good it shall be, thanks to the First blessing: God's gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, Who gave us all a way to step into this wide-open universe made wholly of blessing. Even better: Who lets us share all of this blessing, Who gave us a way to bring others along, to show them the door that is built just for them.
So on this Thanksgiving Day, one of the best in my life, even in looking back, I look forward, remembering God's absolute promises to hold covenant with the descendants of those who love Him "down to a thousand generations", and ultimately, that unto Him "every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear", so that none are left behind.
Counting my blessings, in an endless list that wanders from the Oklahoma prairie through the Trump White House to tiny house churches in China, from a Georgia cotton field to the big beautiful cities of Texas, across the vast expanse of the internet to the light of shooting stars, along an ancient path with a prayer cast forward, from my great great grandparents' graves to my parents' tables to my grandbabies' cribs, an endless sphere of goodness and wonder that starts and ends at home.
Home!
Thank you Jesus, Thank you Father God.
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