Counting my Blessings
As I was fixing breakfast this morning, I was reminded, yet again, of the blessed life I live. I had forgot to run the dishwasher, so the pan I needed to cook our breakfast in was dirty. I had to wash the pan by hand. This doesn’t happen much around here. I use my dishwasher, and exert very little energy in getting the dishes clean. This is not to say that I don’t know how to wash dishes. I spent many childhood hours washing sink-fulls of dirty dishes. As I was washing the pan, I began to remember a picture that my mom used to have hanging in the kitchen. I spent a lot of time washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen…not to mention cooking…when I was a kid, and I read the words to the poem on my mom’s picture many, many times. I committed it to memory without even thinking about it. I was surprised today to find that, after all these years, I can still remember the words to the poem.
Thank God for Dirty Dishes.
They have a tale to tell.
While others may go hungry,
We’re eating very well.
With home and health and happiness,
I shouldn’t want to fuss.
For by this stack of evidence,
God’s been good to us.
Even as a kid that hated to clean the kitchen worse than just about anything, I understood the gravity of the idea behind the poem. I was blessed. We didn’t have much when I was a kid, especially when I was very young, but we never went hungry. I knew that I had more than many kids around the world, and it made an impression on my young heart. I was blessed.
Now, as an adult, the words to that simple poem linger in my mind. I have great riches. I have a wonderful husband who provides so well for our family. I have three beautiful children. We have plenty to eat, an abundance of clothes to choose from, and many toys and gadgets to keep us entertained. I have a lot to do today. I have a mountain of laundry to do, and there are toys all over the house that need picked up and put away. Isn’t it amazing how we so often complain that God has blessed us so much that we have blessings…not clothes, not toys, but blessings…laying around everywhere?
So, I contemplate the goodness of God, and, as I look over the mountain of clean laundry ready to be folded and put away, I know that “by this stack of evidence, God’s been good to us.”
