Let’s count our blessings

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

IT’S unfortunate that some people are not happy with their lives. They feel they have been short-changed, exerting a lot of effort with little return as a reward. Some feel that they are unlucky in life since they seem to have failed to achieve their dreams. Others feel they were not given the chance to make full use of their talents or what they consider is their worth.

Many people seem to be sad, frustrated, disappointed, disgruntled. Some have lapsed into a state of depression. The cases of mental illness have grown, and those of suicide are getting common.

It’s understandable that they feel that way. We are human and we always get affected by anything that goes against our liking, our desires and dreams. But it’s also human for us to learn to be above all these possible scenarios in life, since we all know that life is some kind of drama with factors, circumstances and developments that are beyond our control.

And yet we should not forget that God is always in control of things. If we could only have a strong and tight relationship with God, we know that everything serves a purpose and that everything is actually taken care of already by him. We should not worry. Or rather, we should not persist in worrying. The happy ending of our life is already guaranteed as long as we are with God!

What we have to do is to simply be sport and game in life. We do all that we can, we try our best to win, to achieve, to conquer whatever is the issue, challenge or trial. But we know that in a game or race, we sometimes lose. We may even lose many times, or still even always.

Yet if we have the correct frame of mind, we know that what is proper for us is just to move on, while trying to learn from our mistakes. Our defects, limitations, frustrations, and even our sins and falls are great teachers of values and virtues that we need to develop. And if we have Christian faith, we know that these negative elements in our life can strongly attract God’s attention, mercy and care for us.

But before anything else, we should indeed count our blessings that we often take for granted. Imagine all these: God has given us the great gift of life, and together with it are our many endowments: our intelligence, our will, our memory and imagination, our talents.

More importantly, he has given us the gifts of faith, hope and charity. And most especially, he has given us grace and the guarantee of our salvation, as long as we also do our part.

These blessings should never be lost in our mind. They should trigger in us the constant urge to be thankful and to correspond to all these goodness with all our best efforts. When doubts, fears, worry, anxiety would come our way, we should just get back to these wonderful truths of our faith to bring us back to our proper state of joy and peace in our life.

When we are not happy and at peace, we have to admit that we have a problem for which we have to find a solution. And the best and ultimate solution is the faith in God’s goodness, wisdom and mercy. We, of course, have to look for the human solutions, but we should remember that there are problems that humanly speaking cannot be solved anymore. We just have to learn to let go and move on.

Thus, we also have to develop the virtues of patience, fortitude and optimism. Let’s remember that when we are made to suffer, we should avoid suffering alone. We have to suffer together with Christ, and that suffering of ours would acquire tremendous benefits for all of us!

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com