Counting My Blessings

Do you have a favorite frustration or worry, one that you particularly like to take out and play with when you’re tired or overwhelmed or stressed? I sure do…

I had a meeting the day after I got back from Utah that didn’t finish until I was well and truly jetlagged. Then as we left the church building we realized that no one (with keys) had locked up, so we had to figure out a way to get the building locked and wait until that was done. By the time I started my drive home I had taken out my favorite frustration and was getting myself worked up into a lather about it.

The radio wasn’t on in the car, and after a few minutes of fretting I had a thought. I could, I thought, pray about my frustration and see if Heavenly Father could make it go away. And so I started praying.

I told Heavenly Father how tired I was of feeling this way, and asked him if He could change my heart in some way so that I could stop thinking these thoughts. After a few moments of prayer, a thought came into my mind. It was just a little memory of a talk that Elder Bednar had given in General Conference in October of 2008. In this talk, Elder Bednar had told of an experience when a visiting general authority had suggested that his wife only include expressions of gratitude in their family prayer. Although I had struggled with that idea at the time (and for months after hearing the talk!) I decided that since this thought had come to my mind I should give it a try.

First, I tried to find all of the things about my favorite frustration to be thankful for. And there were more than a few; aspects of this situation that I usually ignore while focusing instead on the parts of it that make me unhappy. Then I felt a desire to move my focus of thanksgiving away from this specific situation and onto my life as a whole; my knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His atonement for us, my wonderful fabulous husband, his good job, our comfortable home and amazing children.

As one thought lead to another and I paused to give thanks for each blessing in my life, I felt something start to happen inside of me. The re-awakening awareness of my multitude of blessings filled my heart, swelling and crowding out all of the frustrations I had just been experiencing, leaving only peace and joy. It was a miracle, a late-at-night jet-lagged miracle, and I was truly astonished and grateful.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the hymn “Count Your Blessings”—I like the words but it’s a long song and in our ward hymns are almost always sung slowly enough that by the end you are exhausted instead of uplifted. I decided that I need to find an arrangement that I can love, because I learned that night the truth of the principle that the hymn teaches…

Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done…