Blessings - how you take it

I get some of the most amazing emails.  I am tempted to cut down on all the reading then I encounter one like this one that causes me to stop and really think about my perspective.  Kate is right, when I go looking for the blessings in any situation good, bad, or indifferent, I usually find them.  Like looking for rainbows, you find them when you know what to look for.

Enjoy:


Even those experiences we deem calamitous can carry the seeds of a great blessing. It is often only in retrospect, however, that the benefit reveals itself. And whether or not it reveals itself and how quickly it does so, is dependent upon only one thing: our own individual perspective.

We determine whether something will be a blessing or a curse by the way we choose to see it.

Life is an ongoing process, and most of us meet something at almost every turn we wish were different. But just because something is not turning out the way we want, doesn't mean it won't. And when we insist on calling it good, when we make up our minds that no matter what, we're going to see it as a blessing, then our minds start working overtime to prove us right. Magical things tend to happen and that which we labeled a blessing, more often than not, turns out to be one...

You have a mind that always tries to be right about everything so you might as well use it to your advantage. Become a hunter of blessings, actively seeking them out in every experience and person you encounter. No matter how bad a situation or person might seem, say to yourself and mean it, "There's a blessing in this, and I will find it!"

Your subconscious will accept this statement as a direct order and, if necessary, move heaven and earth to make certain the blessing is found. Follow this regimen for a while and you may very well discover that you've poked a hole in every problem and send every misery packing. Problems and miseries don't tend to stay in an atmosphere of blessings for very long.

When the apostle James wrote to the members of the early Christian church that they should "count it all joy," he had a good reason for doing so. He understood, as did Benjamin Franklin nearly 2000 years later, that life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it. And when you take life as a blessing, it tends to become one.

So the next time a difficulty arises, don't let yourself get tied up in knots. Take a keep breath and relax. You have nothing to worry about. That difficulty is nothing more than a signal that a blessing is on its way. And as you start looking for the blessing, everything else will fade away.
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What you just read was an excerpt from Kate Nowak's inspiring book May You Be Blessed. (video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZjUgRjbTYY) This spring, take the time to really think about the blessings in your life. Whether it be those first flowers you see in your yard or even the rain that often comes with the season, remember, you will determine whether something is a blessing or a curse by the way you choose to see it. Try to think of everything as a blessing this spring, because you never know when you have a blessing in disguise.