UMBRELLA BLESSINGS

Sub-zero temperatures, furnaces not working properly, flu bug everywhere just waiting to jump on us, scraping ice off our cars, scary times driving on slippery roads, our arthritis acting up because of the cold…...all things that add up to making a grumpy being this past week in central Ohio. Recognize any part of your life? 

 

 

Or maybe your list of complaints are not weather driven…..maybe there is something else.

Woe-Is-Me-itis!  Not only did I notice I WAS catching it, I experienced others catching it when I visited the residents of a long-term -care-facility last week.  What to do about this down pouring of complaints?

 

 Normally when life events get me down, I start consciously counting my blessings.  I do five a night, but thought this might be too much for the residents I visit.   

 

So I created a poster with an umbrella—pasted photos of ourselves

under the umbrella, and asked some residents to play a game with me.  I asked everyone to identify, including me and another volunteer, three little or big things they were grateful for during the past week. Then I wrote those blessings on the umbrella.  Because blessings are like an umbrella, aren’t they?  When we remember our blessings, it shields us from life’s downpours. 

My favorite blessings that residents identified today:      

“I am not as nutty as some people are around here.” 

“My server today surprised me with a sausage and egg biscuit instead of the regular oatmeal”,

and from the woman I visit, who has cancer and is under hospice care, 

 “I woke up this morning.”    

 The umbrella of blessings was a success! Quite frankly, I was not sure it would be.  However, it sparked a lot of conversation about the good things in life and at the end of the blessings recounting, the residents said they thought this was a good idea.

 

So I am inviting you to join us…..every Sunday for one month, write down three blessings that you experienced the prior week. 

 

I am not going to kid you, this past year has been a tough one for me with deaths in my immediate family, and family, and my own, health concerns…..but wow, when I thought about my blessings of this past year, there were wonderful, even miraculous, things that happened to me.   

One of my biggest blessings was experiencing the bigheartedness of the wonderful people who, by their donations and support, kept Betty Brewer’s Angels in operation for another year. We are a non-profit volunteer organization that depends on donations to survive. Without the generosity of our donors, our volunteers would not be visiting and brightening the lives of lonely residents of long-term care facilities.  Thank you all from our volunteers' the residents' they visit, and my heart for being an “umbrella-blessing” to Betty Brewer’s Angels!