Thankful For What I Don't Have

An "oldie" post that I always feel is timely, because it is so easy to think about what we have to be grateful for rather than what we escaped from or what never came to be that was actually a far better blessing.

Thanksgiving always brings thoughts of blessings too numerous to count. Easily, I can identify what I have been so graciously given often without truly deserving these blessings. But it is what I did not get or what did not happen that perhaps makes me even more grateful.

So this Thanksgiving, I want to remember to thank God for the times He has spared me what could have been tragic news; for the illnesses that I didn't have, the financial ruin that did not come my way, the losses I have not experienced. I am grateful I have not lost a loved one in combat or a child before they were born.Thank you for the times you allowed me to avoid the accidents that could have happened, the mistakes that could have cost me more than I realized, the train wrecks that might have been. I am blessed to have avoided many catastrophes by the protection of an Almighty God.

Thank you for redirecting me from dysfunctional people and/or circumstances that would have left my life far different from the one I know. Thank you for your mercy when my judgments were poor and for your grace allowing outcomes brighter than I might have expected.  Thank you for not allowing abuse, intolerance or disrespect into my relationship with my spouse or children. I am grateful to have never known abandonment.

I am so very thankful that I do not know hunger or homelessness. Things so easily had by many; unemployment, chronic illnesses, tragic events, separation from loved ones because of war or other circumstances; all of these I was spared. I am blessed that I do not have to wash in a public shelter, scavenge through garbage for my next meal or sleep under an overpass. You have kept famine, torture and violence from my daily routines. Yes, I am so grateful for the things that might have been; but for the grace of God.



How about you?  Can you offer a thanks for what you do not have to deal with or what you were spared? Can you discover your passion or your fire in what you were blessed not to have had to deal with?

It is not what you have that is always the blessing but perhaps what you have avoided.

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