As a people, we are very ambitious and this is good, there can however be a downside to this, if we are not careful. We could find that we lose ourselves in pursuing self-advancement; a bigger degree for that bigger salary, a bigger house, a newer car, and find ourselves wondering, why are we not happy, why does our life feel so dull and empty. The thing is, we forget to be thankful for the little things that we already have, without which, our lives would not mean much. Our relationships, our health, our faith, our freedom, I could go on.
There are times in my life when I feel I could have achieved more in certain areas, and as a result I beat upon myself and take on a 'woe is me' attitude. Thankfully, I am soon reminded that less I be accused of being ungrateful, I do have many other things to be thankful for.
In my pursuit to become a more thankful and happier person, in general then, I am urged to add a new posting feature to my blog, a segment dedicated to being thankful, which I have decided to call ‘GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS', my gratitude journal, if you will, where I will, on Wednesdays of each week, post one thing in my life that I am thankful for, regardless of how small.
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Today I
am grateful for the gift of sight.
I adore
God’s creation and there are days when I get up and feel ever so grateful and
appreciative of the way he chooses to bless us by way of his beautiful creation. I am
very happy that I am able to so indulge, by way of my sight.
I love
to smile and I love to see others smile, especially when the whole face smiles
with that special twinkle in the eyes. They say the eye is the window to the
soul and I am every so grateful that I have sight to be able to catch a glimpse
of what happens in the soul.
With
this said, there is a lovely lady that I met while my family and I were living
in Trinidad, who happens to be blind. This lady has such quiet dignity about
her, she is always smiling and always respond in the most pleasant heartwarming way when approached. She never seems perturbed by the fact that she is blind. She does not wait
on others to take her around and even sings in church in the special item slot,
using her braille sometimes. She has four children, two of which are daughters.
I asked one of the daughters how she
thinks her mother feels about not being able to see her children (she seem to
have been blind early in her life). She said, well she takes my face in her hands
and feel all the contours and this, she says, gives her a pretty good idea of her features. I was so taken by this and thought if I were blind,
I wish I would be able to deal with it with such grace.
Most
persons know by now that I stutter. I remember telling someone one day that I
wish I was blind or dumb or had some other affliction, because there are days
when being a stutterer causes me so much distress. The person responded,
cautioning me, “are you sure? I feel
strongly about my opinion that it is through being able to communicate that
others know how smart and articulate we are. So it goes without saying that
there are days when I do feel less than smart and articulate. At least in the
case of being dumb I could fluently communicate through sign language, I
thought, but then again only persons who know sign language very well would I be
able to communicate effectively with. I have since rebuked myself and taken
this all back, because God, in his sovereignty, knows what we are able to deal
with and gives only what he thinks is best for us. I probably would not have been able to deal
with being blind for dumb or deaf for that matter, half as how I am able to
deal with being a stutterer.
For my
gift of sight then, I am truly grateful.
