Blessings and Thankfulness.....

It’s been a busy couple of weeks around these them parts…….

But I wanted to post about a moment that happened a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t becoming my favourite weekend – first of all I got an ENORMOUS steam burn on my right arm as the lid slipped off of the pot of pasta I was draining over the sink. I was leading worship that night at a prayer meeting and had to drive to the church with a bag of ice shoved into my sweater sleeve. Not so practical……

Then on Saturday morning I smashed yet another bowl in the kitchen (love tile, but not its consequences….). We seem to have lost a few dishes of late.

But the clincher was Saturday late afternoon. A few friends were over to watch the hockey game and as I played with Benjamin in the spare bedroom I caught my ring on the duvet and noticed my diamond was missing !!!! (insert heart-dropping-into-stomach here…..) So the hunt began. Me and and my sweet friend Jeni on all fours on the ground, hands scraping the carpet in the hopes of seeing something small and glittery jump in the air and catch our eye. The boys kept watching hockey which honestly made sense. Nothing was going to be found before the end of the period so they might as well enjoy it before I physically force Darrell to join the hunt post-game! Well the game ended and Darrell decided to tear apart the vacuum bag and go through every little speck of dirt there, as I had thoroughly vacuumed the house pre-game. And precious friend Helena, took to crawling around on my tile floor looking for a shine that didn’t come from my daughter’s beads scattered around our kitchen!

While they were doing that I took a flashlight and decided to check the driveway as I had run out earlier to get us all pizza for supper. And then the moment of immense thankfulness. And no, not because I found the diamond. As I was outside, frantically searching for my diamond in the concrete grooves of my driveway, it hit me. And I started to cry, a little uncontrollably. I realized that while I was using a flashlight to search for a sparkly gem in the night, people in Haiti were using their flashlights to look for ……. People……. I was overcome with gratefulness and thankfulness and a sense of perspective.

So I went back into the house and decided to have a cup of tea. Yes, it may seem like a weird transition but at this point I realized if I found the diamond, great. And if not, I had not one reason to complain or feel sorry for myself. So it was tea-time.

After our friends left, Darrell was still searching through the vacuum dirt (& coughing as now it was affecting his asthma….. love him!) when he suggested I vacuum the house again. (Insert tired, exhausted sigh on my part). This was the LAST thing I wanted to do. The house was clean and I was tired. But, I have to admit it made sense. Well wouldn’t you know, after I re-vacuumed the downstairs, then hit my bedroom, I vacuumed my closet floor and heard a little ‘clinkle’. Don’t ask me what a clinkle is, but that’s the sound it made! I went to the kitchen to persuade D to stop working on his bag and instead open mine. And there, in the middle of a small pile of dust, was my diamond!!!!!! That man is so smart sometimes…….

So we gathered the kids and all prayed and thanked God that He cares about the little things that matter to us. And we all said how blessed we are to be healthy, and alive. (insert Mummy reminding the kids that only ONE leper came back to thank God for healing…. Tee hee)

And PRAISE THE LORD – I just learned yesterday that our little Haitiian sponsor girl, Sannodra, was unaffected by the earthquake – YAY!! Life is Hard. But God is Good. All the time.