Blessings

Blessings can seem few and far between these days. Just watch the news and we can get easily depressed. At least all of the political ads have subsided. These days when I travel to work it is dark out and when I come home it is dark out. It can be a very depressing time of year. But then something happens to brighten up our day.

Someone will smile at us or give us a hug and suddenly our days get just a little bit brighter. Why is that? Is there something magical in a smile? Is it normal to feel better when somebody squeezes you? The actions themselves mean nothing. It's what accompanies those actions that means everything. It's called love.

Love is a blessing. To receive a blessing it must be given BY someone. The person giving us that blessing could be the person blessing us. After all, they are the ones who smiled at us or hugged us. But where did they get their desire to do that from? I submit to you that any such desires to bless others comes out of love. Someone smiles at us because they love us. We hug one another because we LOVE one another. That is a blessing.

But where does LOVE come from? Surely love does not evolve out of a puddle of primordial ooze. Love is an emotion.

Question: Where do emotions come from? I don't really know. No one really can PROVE where it comes from. I personally believe that our emotions are given to by God. I feel the same way about blessings.

"We love because he first loved us." - 1 John 4:19

Blessings come in many shapes and sizes. We can receive a blessing in the form of a letter from a friend, a Facebook post, a door opened for a stranger, a hug from a dear friend, or sometimes blessings can come from someone we don't even know.

I work at a company filled with many talented people. Each one of them is good at something. Some design buildings, others draw them up. There are people who design roads and ways to make and keep our water cleans. All of them have God-given talents of one sort or another. Recently however, they have gone beyond their normal level of commitment and have decided to bless people they don't even know this Thanksgiving. They are providing Thanksgiving meals for several area families - families who cannot afford to pay for the food themselves.

This past Saturday I was blessed myself by being allowed to give some of those meals away at a local food pantry. Four families were hand-picked for this specific need but one family in particular caught every one's attention.

A mother of three was at the food pantry picking up food for herself and her children. Her husband left her. She has no job. She didn't even have enough money for the registration fee. When she was asked if she would like to receive a complete Thanksgiving dinner, her hands rose to her mouth in shock and the tears began to flow. She simply could not believe that someone would give her such a gift.

Blessings are given freely or they are simply not blessings at all. Blessings are given from the heart and, as the Bible verse says above, all blessings first come from God. He blesses people through others. He loves all people and often expresses that love through other people.

Blessing someone else is one of those gifts that can keep on giving. The blessings can echo far beyond the initial blessing into the lives of many others.

This woman who received the free Thanksgiving dinner. She was blessed. Her children were blessed. The giver was blessed and God receives the glory. Win, win, win, win.

The best blessings are given anonymously. Those are the ones God loves the most. Those are the blessings that leave little doubt as to who the deliverer was. God.

This holiday season, please, bless someone in some out of the ordinary way. When you dine out leave a tip for the waiter that is larger than the cost of the meal and thank your waiter personally for her service. They will be shocked . . . and they will remember your act of kindness for the rest of their lives.

Tell someone you love them. Most will say they love you in return. There is no downside to love, given innocently and freely, like a child gives love to a family member. So should it be with us.

God is the giver of all blessings. He is the maker of all things. If we are loving human beings we will never pass up the opportunity to love one another because God loves us.

"8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love." - 1 John 4:8

Bless someone today. You will be glad you did . . . and God will be glad too. :)

Blessings - Laura Story