A couple of days ago I made a reference on my post about being thankful for every one of my blessings and I decided to keep this topic for another post because I was about to get very much off topic from what I had been writing that day. When I was writing down those thoughts I was thinking about how my husband has been practicing Zen meditation for almost a year now at ZCOC and how proud I am of him. He usually tries to go both days they have practice at the center, unless he is at work, and best of all has extended his practice at home and tries to meditate daily either in the morning or evening. I admire his discipline and commitment to his practice. Sometimes my own discipline with things waivers quite a bit, and unfortunately I stopped keeping up with my own practice, which something I do want to pick up again though.

But before I get too much off topic, the reason I thought of my husband’s meditation practice and being thankful for each blessing is because my husband does a separate meditation where he thanks God for his blessings. What I love about this is that he goes through and in his mind thanks God for all the things he can think of, no matter how small or large they may seem, because in the end everything that we have is a blessing. From our work, to our health, family, our challenges, etc. It’s so easy to become unaware of these significant things during our day-to-day activities and not realize that if we sit and reflect on our blessings we will see how many beautiful things we get to enjoy in our lives.  

When I look back on the things I use to worry about in my 20’s and how much I’ve learned to appreciate and be thankful for over the years I realize that some of the things that I worried about were very silly and vain. Before life seemed to be filled with so many empty wants whereas now appreciating the beauty of nature or the feeling of warmth when you hold your loved one’s hand or when you visit your parents and kiss them goodnight, it’s so much more rewarding than anything you could ever purchase. Those, among so many other moments and sights, are the kind of things I am thankful for now and feel so blessed that God allows me to experience.