Where do I begin: How Blessed are you?

Where do I begin: How Blessed are you?: Have you ever just stopped and thought of how blessed you are????   I mean really stop and think for a minute of all the blessings in your l...

How Blessed are you?

Have you ever just stopped and thought of how blessed you are????   I mean really stop and think for a minute of all the blessings in your life. You maybe reading this and thinking Jo how can you ask me that?  I am going through hell at the moment..my finances are a mess...my marriage is mess....my life at this moment is a mess how can you ask me to find the blessings right now?   Last week I was blessed with the opportunity to teach the middle school aged kids at church.  I asked them if they knew of the young girl who had been shot because she was protesting for the rights of other young girls and women to have more rights. She was 14!  A 14 year old who the courage and determination to protest!  What an amazing young women...and to be shot in the head by the very men wanting to keep the young girls and women of her country oppressed.   In America we don't have to protest for the right to learn how to read or the right to get an education....all though we still have a gap in income earned between men and women we still have a right to an education, to vote, to have a job to be a stay at home mom.   We are blessed!  Our girls can get onto the bus and freely attend public school and learn. They are encouraged to excel and to be all they can be.   We are blessed!  I think of other ways we are also blessed...we are free to worship God!  We are free to be open about our beliefs!  This is not so in some countries.   We are Blessed!   We are able to go to the grocery store and shop and our food is there...anything we need or want...it is there.  If you don't have money there are ways to have whatever your need is met.   WE are Blessed!  If you stop and think about all the ways we are blessed today we can look at the circumstances we maybe in and say it could be worse.   When life seems to be falling apart stop and think of the mother in the Darfur region....she is sitting holding her baby who is starving to death because she is unable to nurse for lack of food and water for herself...she sits fanning the flies from her child.   Think of the children and families in the Uganda nation.   They have nothing....to send one child to school is an entire year of wages....most families are unable to afford to  send one child to school....there is very little food, children and adults have no shoes and the are infested with these little parasites that live in soil and sand, they like nothing more than burrowing head first into the skin of warm blooded hosts.  They have to be dug out and cause sores on the bottom of the feet.  It is very sad.  Read the Kisses from Kate....it will make you realize just how bless we are and what an over abundance we have.   You don't have to travel outside the U.S.  to find poverty or people without.  There are people right now who are living from shelter to shelter. Families who are living in their car....losing their homes because of financial difficulties.  I am writing this because I often see so many who are unhappy and think life is so bad....when really they are overly blessed but because of lack of continent and blinded eyes they can't see past their problems or needs. I say stop looking at all the negatives.  Open your eyes and see life in different perspective.  Two books I recommend everyone to read is One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis.  They will truly touch your heart and let you see life in a much different perspective.   Today my eyes are open and I thank God for every blessing He has given. I don't want to take one moment of this life that has been given to me for granted I want to live and really fully live.   I will not let my circumstances or people rob me of my blessings of Life....I will openly embrace this season of life I am in...I will give God thanks for all He is doing and will be doing in my life...in bad times or good times I will bless the Lord!!!!
Find your blessing today....take a deep breath and say I am Blessed!  Smile and embrace all of what today has for you :D

Not the Trophy Wife

I am in the bathroom this morning trying to get this beautiful mess that I call hair up so I can do my errands this morning when I stop and I look at myself in the mirror.   I smile...and I say to myself Jo you have come a long way.   I have a few wrinkles...my hair is graying (just a little)but I see someone who has over come so many obstacles,failures,let downs,hurt and so much more. and as I am staring at the mirror I have a memory of something that was once said to me....."you are not trophy wife material" I remember thinking to myself wow....there must be something very wrong with me.   I am not good enough nor worthy enough because I am not trophy wife material.  This was what I was told of why a certain person could not date me....I just was not good enough.  I was not educated enough, well rounded enough, did not come from the right background and just would not fit in the circle of people that would be required of me.   Can I just go ahead and say it now...PRAISE THE LORD!  At first I let this sit in my spirit and I let this tell me that I was just worth nothing...and no one could ever love me because well I simply was not good enough....now looking at myself in the mirror I begin to smile....I am so thankful that I am not "Trophy Wife" material but I am worthy of love, I am somebody and yes there is someone who loves me....I don't want someone to want me just because of my background,education or because I am well rounded.   If someone only loves me for those reasons that is not love, that is superficial and I want way more then a superficial relationship.  If you are a young girl or a women please do not settle...do not feel you have to be someone your not for someone to love you. Know who you are and do not be conformed or molded into someone that someone else wants you to be.  If someone really loves and cares about you....they are going to love all of you...your past, your background and anything that makes you...you.   I look at my relationship with God and I smile with great joy in my heart.  Had I settled and only wanted to be the "trophy wife" I would not have the relationship with God that I do.  I would be busy jumping through hoops making sure I was living the perfect life to please a person who superficially loved me.  I am here today in a relationship with a man that treats me with 100% respect, he honors me, loves me and cherishes me....and loves me for me.   I am so glad that I did not settle.....I have a relationship that is meaningful and full of life and he loves me because I am not perfect...he loves me for me.  Life is short....live life to the fullest...don't worry about being perfect...there is only person who has lived that was ever perfect and that was Jesus.  I want to model myself after him not what some man thinks I should be.....Be blessed and love yourself...because if you can't love yourself how can you love thy neighbor.....

Blessings on this beautiful October morning:D