“You must really count your blessings.”
Those were the words of my friend D before we parted ways
while on our way home. After musing about what have passed in the two days, I
remark to myself, “Actually not only count, but just believe in them.”
I think I’d lost the ability to believe in blessings
sometime earlier in my life during that fateful April 2011. After God managed
to save me from that incident, I was still a faithful believer in Christ, but
somehow with regard to blessings, I had become a diehard cynic. Ironically, it
did not manifest itself in the direct way of dismissing blessings as falsehood
and lies. It stemmed more from the fundamental knowledge that blessings are
transient. Perhaps the best person to quote from the Bible with regard to my
mindset would be Job with his famous
“Naked I came from my
mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”
Job 1:21-22 (NIV)
I was not wrong in being aware of the transience of
blessings. They are indeed impermanent and come and go. However, I had become
so hung up on their brevity, that I was in a perpetual state of panic that I
even as I have come to learnt to take care of myself better and better, while respecting
other, my fear would get in the way regularly and disturb me from fully
appreciating what I have been blessed with.
I think God had enough. Being pleased with my willingness
to serve him was not enough. He wanted me to reclaim the joy I had lost that
May five years ago. Being the master planner He is, He did not reveal the
plans immediately. Instead he laid the foundations much earlier, with the
situation at times looking unstable, erratic, and even dismal at times. And
meanwhile I was wondering whether I was really incorrigible, a case doomed for
failure.
During this past five years of unravelling, I had not recognized
the gift at first. It really took a while to see it, here, there. Now my eyes
are blinded by the majesty of it. Indeed His ways are really beyond any
comprehension. It is at the revelation of their totality and completeness that
you are left gaping in awe and wonder.
I am still awestruck in joy, and I pray to God to help
me always hold this moment in my heart. Amen!
