LIFE --1 Hour At A Time!: October 2013

I am in the habit of counting my blessings and thanking God for them daily. Today while I was crying in exhaustion and emptying my garbage, I surprisingly found myself noticing the items in the garbage and being grateful for them, and being grateful that I live in these days of convenience, if I have to be sick.

I looked at the milk carton and was grateful that I didn't have to milk the cow myself and make the dairy products myself.

I saw the empty insulin bottle and was grateful for modern medicines that keep us alive and improve our quality of life.

I saw the CD cover and was so grateful to live in the age of Internet, where I can stay home but still have friends worldwide, find people who I can learn from, and even earn a living from home.
I saw the TV guide part of the newspaper and was grateful for a TV for entertainment any time I want, and company when I'm alone, and distraction from my pain.

I saw the empty herb bottle and was so grateful for natural medicine that I didn't have to go find the herbs in the fields myself. I’d love to if I had the strength, but I don’t.

I saw a frozen meal container, and was grateful that those exist for when I am too weak to cook.

I saw the banana peeling, and was grateful that we get so many different kinds of produce shipped to us, year round! It was not that long ago that even getting an orange at Christmas was considered a real luxury.

I saw the toilet paper roll and OH HOW GRATEFUL I am for indoor plumbing! Especially in winter.

I saw the light bulb, and I’m oh so grateful for indoor lights/electricity. Even my mother didn't have that until she was a teenager. She was so allergic to the kerosene lamps and the horse she road to school each day.

Even the garbage bag made me grateful for trash pickup, so that the trash doesn't build up in my yard.

I stopped crying and thanked the Lord, realizing that if I had to be so ill, this is certainly the best age to live in. With drive-through banks and so many other conveniences,it makes things that are already very difficult to be easier. I think of people who lived even 50+ years ago, and think of how hard it would be for them to survive and raise a family if they were homebound. Of course it’s still hard, and even with the conveniences, I can barely function, but with the washer and dryer and microwave and dishwasher, I am able to be much more independent than if I had lived 50-100 years ago and had this illness. I have a real sympathy for my ancestors who also lived with lupus in such trying times. My great uncle died in his 50s from what the local Dr. called “rheumatism with internal involvement”, which I think was a bad case of fibromyalgia, which also affects internal organs and endocrine and nervous system. Auto-immune diseases go back quite a few generations in my family. So I give them so much credit, and I’m almost ashamed of how weak I must appear to them, watching down on their family from above.

We take so much for granted, just trying to get through each hour, each day, but at this moment, I want the Lord to know that I take nothing for granted. I am grateful for all my blessings. Especially for being born in the country I was (Canada) where women can say and think and do anything they can dream of, and not be sold off as child brides and not become only second class citizens, as in almost half the world.

Thank You Lord!