THERE IS A BLESSING IN EVERY TRAGEDY

Nuh huh, you are saying, but just think about it. I know you've all had them...tragedies. Probably lots of them. Illness, death, disease, loss, the list could go on for pages and there would always be some tragedy missing. Probably yours, as all of our tragedies are varied and sometimes totally unbelievable--fiction wouldn't be so bold.

I lost eyesight in one eye and was devastated but you know what? It was the eye that had a detached retina and now has a cataract and I had limited vision out of it anyway. What a blessing to have sight in the better eye.

Sunday, at church, I said to one of my friends, "You look like you are in pain."

"My grandson threw his coat on my floor," she said, (her floors are hardwood and tile), "and I didn't see it, stepped on it, and I fell. Can't you see around my eye? I doctored it as good as I could with make-up."

She thinks she may have cracked some ribs and, indeed, she was in pain. And then she said, "I'm so lucky I didn't break anything, what a blessing."

And so it goes.

This afternoon, we went to the movie with friends. Here in Utah we are in the middle of a GIANT snow storm. The streets are a mess and the parking lot at the theatre had about four inches of slush. As I was getting into the car I bumped my glasses on the door and the lens to my glasses popped out and fell into the slush. I felt like a fool. No grace, no dignity, just whacking my head like an idiot. Phil saw the lens fall and thought it was a piece of ice. He might have stepped on it but...didn't. He reached down and in all that slush, somehow saw the clear piece of glass and retrieved it. What a blessing. I forgot I was a fool and was grateful that my lens wasn't broken, which it would have been if there weren't nice soft slush for it to fall into.

I think we should start recognizing them. Our blessings amidst the tragedies.

Tragedies seen to announce themselves with gusto, like Kramer, when he hearts the doorbell--toenails clicking, rounding the corner on the slick kitchen floor, sliding into the wall, bounding up to clatter some more and start the bark, bark, barking. The blessings come, quietly, like a kitty with velvet paws, sometimes even amid the tragedies. We just need to be still and watch for them.

So, lets' do it, let's watch for the blessings.

I will if you will.