Blessing

I stumbled across a site: Tale Weaver, having followed a link in someone’s blog.

Tale Weaver – #284 – Blessing – July 16th. This week weave your tale around your response to the word: ‘blessing’. We receive blessings, we give blessings, we ask for a blessing, we sometimes …

I thought it highly appropriate on the day after my birthday. So this is my response:

Count your blessings one by one
that’s what they used to say
so that’s what I did yesterday.

16th July 2020 – the day after I hit 63 – I wrote:

Blessings abound when You’re around
God bless – my email signature
May the blessing of God almighty, Father Son and Holy Spirit be with you always
is the way I conclude worship.

My favourite is the blessing of a couple
as I have just declared them
husband and wife
such a privilege to pronounce
Gods’s blessing on a marriage.

Today I feel blessed
because of yesterday
my birthday
and lots of Facebook friends’
messages of love and blessings.
Of 70 who wished me happiness
10 contained blessings.
I’d rather feel blessed than simply happy.

Happiness is fleeting
but blessings last
they go deeper
into the roots of our being.

Then morning prayer brought

Blessed are you, creator of all,
to you be praise and glory for ever.

1 God be gracious to us and bless us ♦
and make his face to shine upon us,

5 Let the peoples praise you, O God; ♦
let all the peoples praise you.

6 Then shall the earth bring forth her increase, ♦
and God, our own God, will bless us.

7 God will bless us, ♦
and all the ends of the earth shall fear him. Psalm 67

The service concludes with:

The Lord bless us, and preserve us from all evil,
and keep us in eternal life.
All Amen.

Let us bless the Lord. 
All Thanks be to God.

So each of my days starts by blessing God…. And acknowledging his blessings….

The day progressed and I forgot to look out for blessings….

So busy was I with
parish busyness of
curate training
forward planning
and frustrations of video recording.

Then upsetting news in an email
(the content of which I would rather not say)
so after shedding a tear or two
and a hug from hubby
I went for a walk to clear my head
and pray
and maybe
I would have come round to
counting my blessings one by one
if I hadn’t met a mum
upset by her son
and listened to her tale.
I said I’d pray
and as we parted
I heard myself say
”God bless”

A brisk walk was needed to return home in time for night prayer,
that relaxing end to the day
when I always say
look back on the day
and see where you’ve been blessed
or been a blessing to others.
We acknowledge the ‘not so good’
then commit the next day to God.

On to Zooming bible study
so many interesting points of view
of the work of the Holy Spirit
in St Paul’s letters.

Eventually ate dinner at 8.30pm
with a bit of ‘allo ‘allo for fun
before going to bed
and as my head
settled into the pillow
I remembered to thank God
for the blessings of the day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I scribbled notes for this blog this morning –
my day off lay ahead of me
with that first cup of tea
I’ll wait and see
what blessings God has for me
as I relax, paint perhaps (but I don’t know what)
and go for a walk.

I have been too tired to do a proper painting and so I continue with a doodle I started on my birthday using only the brushes that were a gift from a friend:

This is the post that got me started on Blessings:

https://historyofawoman.wordpress.com/2020/06/25/running-water/

Although I have been extremely tired this morning, it is now time for lunch and a walk by the river with my husband. God’s blessings abound….. I hope that you also feel blessed. Thank you for reading this.

God bless
x