Grateful and blessed beyond measure – that’s me!
Today I will focus on all that I’m grateful for in the past week, but before that, I’d like to share with you one of Henri Nouwen’s experiences. As you might have figured out, if you’re a regular reader, he is one of my heroes.
There is one of my friends there who is quite handicapped (he worked with the mentally challenged) but a wonderful, wonderful lady. She said to me, “Henri, can you bless me?” I remember walking up to her and giving her a little cross on her forehead. She said, “Henri, it doesn’t work. No, that is not what I mean.” I was embarrassed and said, “I gave you a blessing.” She said, “No, I want to be blessed.” I kept thinking, “What does she mean?”
We had a little service and all these people were sitting there. After the service I said, “Janet wants a blessing.” I had an alb on and a long robe with long sleeves. Janet walked up to me and said, “I want to be blessed.” She put her head against my chest and I spontaneously put my arms around her, held her, and looked right into her eyes and said, “Blessed are you, Janet. You know how much we love you. You know how important you are. You know what a good woman you are.”
She looked at me and said, “Yes, yes, yes, I know. I suddenly saw all sorts of energy coming back to her. She seemed to be relieved from the feeling of depression because suddenly she realized again that she was blessed. She went back to her place and immediately other people said, “I want that kind of blessing, too.”
I think it is very important that when we are in touch with our blessedness that we can then bless other people.
I’m linking today to Laurel Regan’s Today’s Gratitude List No.41. Here’s my list for the week.
I am grateful for:
1. the love and affection I received on my birthday. I was overwhelmed.
2. the old friends I reconnected with and look forward to meeting them soon. It was great to feel the old connection and to know that we’ve all changed, but can still be good friends.
3. my blogs and that I am able to put out a post everyday on this one as part of The Write Tribe Pro Bloggers challenge.
4. the joy of having Pablo. Only another dog-lover would appreciate that.
5. the books I get to read for free.
6. the joys and convenience of online shopping.
Link in to Laurel’s post with your gratitude list for the week.
;
[…] This is how I spent the best part of the day today! Yes, I’m blessed and grateful! […]
[…] me, whenever I hear the word compassion, I recall Henri Nouwen’s provocative essay on the subject. I realized then what a powerful virtue true compassion is. […]
[…] Learning to be grateful has brought about a lot of changes in my life and one of these changes is the ability to forgive and move forward. Part of the process of forgiveness is to be able to see how the person who hurt you had a role to play in your life. Looking back with gratitude for my past, I begin to realize that the people who’ve hurt me, taught me important lessons about life and about my own strengths and weaknesses. That makes it so much easier to forgive, for me at least. […]
[…] Gratitude posts on Mondays (on Tuesday this week!) – linking in to Laurel Regan’s ‘Today’s Gratitude List Linkup‘ […]
There’s a lot to be thankful for, always! I am thankful for the free books too 😀
Usually we do not realize how blessed we all are…if we come to counting we will be surprised to see all that…
Most of the time we count what we do not have 🙁
A lovely reminder…
Not many count the small joys of life. They take it for granted. Like you, I am grateful for my blog, free books and friends; and I think I should adopt a pet to add more joy to my life.
The more I read about what’s going on in the world around me, the more keenly aware I am of just how blessed I am. And I am grateful.
Sometimes, we don’t need to look too far to count our blessings. I am so happy that you had a lovely birthday and a tad jealous that you get so many books to read, for free 😉 Stay blessed, Corinne. Happy to have connected with you through our blogs 🙂
If we feel happy to have small mercies in our life, we are truly blessed. Very beautiful post ! Always stay blessed,Corinne.
May you always stay blessed, Corinne! Appreciating what we have multiplies our happiness and peace, certainly!
Hugs! Er… I meant Blessings!
Getting free books to read is one of the greatest pleasure 😀 I totally agree with you on that Corinne 🙂
I wish more people would remember to count their blessings. When you stop to think about them, there are just so many. That in itself makes me happy! ♥
Recognizing the blessings we have in our everyday life itself is blessing. But sometimes we need a nudge from someone to remind how blessed we are. Thanks for sharing this Corinne. 🙂
This is lovely, Corinne. It made me feel so good to read it. I’d never thought of being blessed in that way before. I liked your gratitude list. Lots of great things to be grateful for.
We are all blessed in one way or the other and we should recognize that..Of-cousre it’s easier said than done..Sometimes I think about all the good in my life , just to remind myself that I’m blessed and move through the day… And yes I’m also happy that I’m able to post for the Pro Blogger Challenge 🙂