Overlooked Blessings and Miracles

I don’t know about you, but winter can really zoink the energy and life right out of me, sometimes. {Well, for now at least, I’m blaming winter.}

I can quite literally go to bed suuuuper early, sleep all throughout the night (more or less), and then find myself more exhausted when I wake up in the morning. In attempts to never want to get out of my nice, warm, flannel sheets and out and into the cold, I then aim to go for the gold with sleeping, round two, the Daytime Nap edition.

Maybe it’s because I’m a Florida girl at heart. Winter and I just don’t jive. At all.

Or maybe it’s because I’m a girl and allow low moods to overtake me sometimes, no matter what the season is. And. For. Seemingly. No. Reason. At. All.

Maybe (and much more likely) it’s this: I now have a spaghetti-squash-sized human little girl, living and growing inside of me, that I carry everywhere I go. I love her already with all of my heart…. and, apparently, all of my energy, too.

Whatever may be the real-yet-complicated cause to all my recent sleepiness and reluctance to get out of bed and start my days, I realized lately that this much has to be true: something’s gotta be missing.

You see, at heart, I’m an optimist. I see glasses half-full and usually view life through rose-colored glasses. When I started taking extra time to sleep away my days recently, I realized that something was off. Something, for me, was missing. When I began not to look forward to each day and the unique treasures it would hold for me, that’s when I began to diagnose-in-my-mind what that “off” factor was and pray that God would reveal to me what I could do to change it.

In my mind, life is meant to be vibrant and full of color, creativity, and opportunities. And truly, mostly, it is. The Bible talks about this in John 10:10b when it refers to the life that Jesus came to give to His children. It doesn’t say He came to bring the mundane life or the routine life or the “just-make-it-or-fake-it-til-Friday life.” Life for a Christian should be lived out abundantly. Christ died to give us an eternal relationship with Him which culminates one day for each of us in eternal life spent with Him. But even until that time comes, our eternal relationship with Christ matters so much, right now, today. We’re made and meant to be living abundantly here on this Earth. It’s easy to pick out the second part of that verse without realizing it in its full context. You see, right before this part of the verse, it mentions the thief (AKA Satan) and how his goal is to kill, to steal, and to destroy.

As I began to get lost in thought over this whole matter of sleeping-waaay-too-much and how that must be a way Satan was stealing and destroying something in my life (extreme line of thought, I know), I began to pray that God would send me a miracle. Yup, that’s what it was that was missing. A miracle. Something huge. Some kind of spark. Something to get me going and awake and excited about getting up in the morning again.

Almost as soon as I prayed these words, to God for a miracle, He gently yet whaamingly reminded me of these truths:

1.    Life itself is a miracle.

You know, there are some people who live their entire lives as if everything is a miracle, and some who live and think nothing is miraculous. By my definition, a miracle is something God uniquely does that I can by no means control, usurp, or even attempt to do on my own. If you ask me, that leaves a whole lot of our lives in the “miracle zone.” Like, life itself, for example. I can’t control my breathing patterns or the number of days I get to spend here on this Earth. God does. In that, life is a miracle. Life is His grace-gift to us.

2.    Salvation is a miracle.

Although life is a miracle, we’re all born in a pretty wretched state of sin. All of us. None of us are perfect, thought many strive to appear to be in various ways. God saw this, knew this before-hand, and lovingly reached down and made a way for us to know Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. The fact that I get to have salvation in Christ is a miracle. Again, it’s a grace-gift from God to me. To you. To all of us that willingly believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that He is Lord.

Just about the time when I was reminded of these general-yet-all-important truths and miracles in my life, I looked down to the ground and besides being in shock that I could almost no longer see my own toes (due to my ever-growing baby bump), I also realized that one of the biggest ever-present blessings and miracles inside of my life here in Earth was literally sitting right underneath my nose the entire time, which leads me to this…

3.    My family is a miracle.

I could literally sit down with you and talk all day long about God’s goodness to me in my family life growing up, as well as His divine leading, promptings, and perfect timing in bringing Jeff and me together to date, to be engaged, to be married, and to now be on this journey of parenthood together. As Jeff and I often talk about and remark, all is God’s grace in our lives, for He’s been so good to us. So even if this pregnancy is part of the reason to blame for all of the tiredness and difficulty in getting out of bed lately, I’m reminded that even the creation and formation of my sweet little Hannah Grace is a miracle in itself.

...Bringing it back out to the big picture for all of us... the bottom line is this: All is God’s grace to us.

I could list out for a long time the graces, blessings, and miracles God has graciously salt-and-peppered into my life when I sit down to really think it through and write it out. That, in itself, has been a big, literal wake-up call in my life as of recent days. He’s good and all He does is good. How can I not possibly, simply, wake up. Stay up. And realize, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Looking at some overlooked blessings and miracles in my own life is what has helped me find and rediscover the vibrancy and abundance of the life that Christ came, lived, died, and rose again victoriously to give me.

Regardless of the seasons of life and the intricacies of the circumstances of your own life (for me, it’s winter and pregnancy), I wonder what blessings and miracles are sitting there – in plain sight – in your life that you’ve been overlooking lately?

I also wonder, what would change in your life (or even just your perspective of it) if you stopped long enough to look at the overlooked and thank God for the many, many, many blessings and miracles He's sprinkled into your life as well?

The Hazard Family 2014 Blessing Jar & Finding the Will of God in 2015

Yesterday, Jeff and I started a Hazard family tradition that we hope to do every year from here on out with our little (growing!) family. It's an oh-so-simple idea, but its implications are far-too-profound to skip over or miss out on. I'm not exactly sure how the idea came to me or how we settled upon the fact that this should become a family tradition down-through-the-years, but I do know the idea came to me at just-the-right-time.

Somewhere amidst the madness that is Christmas preparation, I began to think of the fact that this would be Jeff and my first Christmas together, New Year's, and so on. Not only our "firsts" together as a married couple, but also our "only" ones to celebrate together - just the two of us - as a family, BTB. (That's how we refer to everything that comes Before The Baby.) With this in mind, I wanted not only to make these days/holiday times special, but I wanted to start some family traditions that would be three things:

1. that it would be beneficial for us {as we move forward and grow in our relationship with each other and (most importantly) our relationship(s) with the Lord}

2. that it would be simple/feasible/affordable enough to remember do every year

3. that it would be a tradition to pass on to our kids and create lasting memories for them for years to come

So here goes: I purchased a medium-sized, clear, glass jar with a closing lid. I took two colors of construction paper to remember the year (blue and yellow for this year.... our wedding colors ;-)...) and cut them into one inch square pieces, and then topped it all off by using a small sticky label on the front. See, it's simple. Nothing fancy or overdone.

Here's where the rubber meets the road: We call it our Blessing Jar; and on every slip of paper, we went through (thinking back in chronological order through the months of the year) and wrote down blessings we experienced straight from God in this past year. It could be anything from people He sent our way, books/devotions that encouraged us, answered prayers, etc. In taking turns writing these down, taking turns to talk about them, and (like the old song says) "count your blessings, name them one by one," we realized more than ever how God exceedingly blessed us this past year with all sorts of things we didn't ask for, didn't even think to ask for, and definitely-and-whole-heartedly didn't/don't even deserve.

Before we even knew it, nearly an hour had flown by, our little blessing/thanksgiving jar was full, our hearts were overflowing (For me, tears were overflowing my eyes, and I was going through a box of Kleenexes like it was my part-time job. Then again, some of that could have been a thankful heart mixed in with pregnancy hormones as well... One never can tell. haha ;-) ), and the White Chicken Chili in queue for the night's dinner was calling both of our names (and answering the growls of our tummies).

Before closing up shop, finishing our little Hazard Family New Year's tradition Blessing Jar, and setting it up in a prominent place in the house as a decor-reminder-of-sorts, my sweet husband Jeff decided to read some Scripture that came to his mind during this activity. The Scripture he chose was I Thessalonians 5:18, which reads, "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." After reading that verse, Jeff and I talked about how people, in every stage/age of life, always talk about or like to chase after God's Will for their lives, but how that truly we make it become something more mystical than it really is. Finding God's Will isn't about finding a perfect job or school or marrying a perfect person, though the details of our lives do in fact matter to our highly-and-intrciately-detailed and purposeful God. Finding God's will is exactly what I Thessalonians 5:18 says clearly that it is: Giving thanks in all circumstances.

Thankfully, our Hazard family 2014 Blessing Jar was filled with positives out-the-wahzoo, but I am certain in the years to come that we may have some not-so-positive or even downright-difficult "blessings in disguise" to thank God for throughout the years as well. But that's okay because as long as we allow God to teach us to be thankful IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES - favorable vs. unfavorable and blessings vs. blessings-in-disguise alike - we are fulfilling God's will for us in Christ Jesus. And oh, how refreshing it is to start off another brand-new year in thankfulness over counting all that God has done for us in the past and looking forward - full of faith and with high hopes - for all He is going to do in our present-day and our future.

Today, I encourage you and your family, even if your tradition of doing so looks differently than ours, to do exactly like the old song says to do, "Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done. Count your blessings. Name them one by one. And it will surprise you what the Lord has done."

In doing so, you'll be living out I Thessalonians 5:18, and thus, fulfilling God's will for your life.