We Bought a Jar

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:26)

Late in 2014 I read a book that highlighted the importance of remembering the blessings of God in our lives. The book got me thinking that for many of us, God blesses us in dozens of little ways each and every day; yet because of the busyness of life, we don’t always acknowledge those little blessings. For a lot of us we have a tendency to only acknowledge God when He answers really big prayers and ignore the not-so-big prayer answers.

Worried that I was falling into the category of being ungrateful or passing too many things off in life to happenstance or “coincidence,” I made a decision to become more proactive about being thankful … so I bought a jar. Not a big jar and nothing too fancy – just a large-mouth glass jar with a lid. Starting January 2015 I made a concerted effort to write down all of the little blessings happening in our family and placed them in the jar.

On New Year’s Eve a week and a half ago, my husband I had a fire in the backyard fire pit and sat around and read each and every blessing in the jar. What better way to begin a brand new year than by remembering the goodness of God in the previous year? Surprisingly, there were a LOT of little blessings that happened over the course of one year.

Most of notes in the jar were small things like one of my kid’s had a successful job interview or got a promotion, or somebody successfully brought a failing grade up to a passing grade (my grandson). There were a couple of big blessings in the jar like two of my children got engaged and we sold our house and bought another one.

One of the blessings that made me laugh and cringe at the same time was recorded back in February of last year. The note in the jar read: “Had a wonderful family day at the Tucson zoo today and got to see the baby elephant. Came home to discover I’d left my flat iron on. Thank you Jesus for protecting our house from burning down!”

My husband contributed notes as well, but his tended to be money related like unexpected refund checks, a sale on tools or buying gasoline for $1.68 one day. So many little blessings that were likely forgotten as quickly as they happened but thankfully recorded and remembered in a jar.

We enjoyed our New Year’s Eve blessing jar so much that we decided to continue the “experiment” for another year. The New Year is only a week and half old and we’ve already put at least a half dozen notes in the jar. We look forward to God’s abundant blessings in 2016 and can’t wait to see what unfolds.

As we begin our 50 days of transformation at VCFNP, why not consider transforming your attitude to one of gratitude. Why not become more proactive about thanking God for all of His little blessings. Why not … buy a jar!

Blessings in Christ,
Kathy K.