~and it was food for the soul~

The world seems to be an even more unsettled place these days.
Just when you think it cannot get worse, it does.
These times that we are living in require people to think of the positive, now more than ever.
I pray to always to do that.

     Some nights when I cannot sleep, I just start doing what was recommended to me long ago by a dear friend back home in Kansas.  I count my blessings.  Most nights it works and sooner or later I return to my slumber, but even when it doesn't at least some good comes from it.  
     
     It makes me realize just how many blessings I truly have.
     
     I learned about blessings at a very early age, simply by reading the words that were inscribed on a plate that hung on my grandmother's kitchen wall back in Halstead, Kansas.  I was just a little girl, no more than 7 years old.  One day my younger sister and I were helping our grandmother do the dinner time dishes.  What a pleasant memory that brings to my mind right now!  

     There we were, two tiny barefoot girls wearing cotton dresses and standing on kitchen stools, hands in soapy water at an old kitchen sink.  It was the kind that had just one compartment so grandmother had to put two enamelware dishpans into it.  One was for washing and the other for rinsing. Washing the dishes with Catherine Brown was such a happy time.  I loved helping her.
    
      I noticed one day as we were at the sink that there was a little plate hung on the wall.  Its inscription is one you probably all know.  It is the one that says-

"Thank God for dirty dishes, they have a tale to tell.  While other folks go hungry, we are eating very well."
     
     I remember asking Grandmother Brown what that meant.  Why should we be even thankful for dirty dishes?  She went on to explain it to the both of us little girls.  She spoke of how in the world there were people who go hungry every day, in America as well as all around the world. I was little and didn't even think that could happen.  My belly was hardly ever empty and even it was, it was not for very long.  
     
     In my little heart and mind, I never forgot that moment.  The words she told me that day have stuck with me forever.  Every once in a while I see that plate somewhere and remember the kind grandmother who made such delicious food.  It was nourishment that filled my little tummy and fed my soul as well.
     
     So today please remember what you should be thankful for.  For every mean spirited thing that you hear about on the news, in your workplace, in your home, or in your neighborhood, please pause and substitute the knowledge of something good in its place.  Counting your blessings is extremely beneficial, not only in the middle of the night when you can't go to sleep, but any time of the day.  

     It's cheaper than medicine.
     It lasts longer too.
       

 Whoever thought a basketball goal could be so romantic?  It's the place, as a matter of fact, the exact spot where Mike and I were married in May of 2013.  We went back for a visit in August of that year and stood underneath it once again.  He is my blessing and I am his.