Blessings Overlooked

It’s been a rough week. On Saturday afternoon I began having chest pains. I thought it was from a carbonated electrolyte drink I had earlier. I sometimes have issues with carbonation…along with about every other food and drink on this planet. 

The pain progressively got worse through the night. I got up at 3:00 am and went to the office to tie up loose ends in case…you know. I went through receipts and balanced bank statements. Stuff like that. Just tried to make things easier for Doug in case…you know. That was my train of thought in the middle of the night.

I went back to bed at 5:30, but my chest pains were seriously becoming more of a concern so I woke D up a few minutes before six. We headed to the hospital shortly thereafter.

There they took blood, ran an EKG, gave me stuff for indigestion (yuck), and took a chest X-ray. Blood work came back fine. So did the EKG. The doctor said the x-ray was fine too and diagnosed me with pleurisy. He swiftly came back into the room a little bit later, though, to tell us the radiologist actually found fluid in my left lung. So a CT scan was ordered. The diagnosis, pneumonia.

The blessing is that it wasn’t my heart and I can certainly heal from pneumonia. I didn’t realize how painful pneumonia is. I wish I knew how I got it because I’d never do that again! 

I made it outdoors this morning to sit with D before he went to work. This is D’s most favorite time of the day. In stillness of the morning, all you hear is birdsong. Deer come out of the woods to feed at the mineral hole. Mommas with their fawns venture out into the soybean field. The sun starts to rise over the hayfield. Everything is just waking up. 

I know I’ve spoken about this before so hopefully you won’t mind this gentle reminder. 

As I look at the tree line at the edge of the woods, I notice the different shades of green and sizes of each tree. Their leaves are varied along with their bark. I think of how God masterfully designed variations of trees and plants…for us. Not only for himself, but for us. The world could have been decorated with one kind of tree. One type of flower. One kind of plant. One type of grass. And while we’d think it was beautiful, because that’s all we knew, God didn’t do that. He gave us a beautiful world. And he continued with the animal kingdom. He didn’t give us one bird with one song, or one animal to roam the earth. He gave us an assortment of everything. An array of color and song and beauty and purpose.

Every creature has its own distinct traits and instinct. The monarch travels approximately 3,000 miles to get here from Mexico. About three generations are born throughout the summer months here only to die, while the fourth generation travels that same 3,000 miles back to Mexico when the days become shorter and temperatures drop. How can something so small and fragile complete such a feat?

God created such uniqueness and beauty in every living and nonliving thing. Our world could have been black, grey, and white, and we’d have never known anything different. But God gave us more.

How much do we appreciate these gifts? How often do we take the time to notice them?

Blessings overlooked. 

Today I am sick, yes. But, thankfully, I didn’t have a heart attack. Today I was able to sit with my husband and enjoy one of the greatest of God’s blessings…nature. 

So overlooked. 

So under-appreciated. 

So misunderstood. 

I urge you to think about these things…and to truly see all that is in plain sight. Your world just might become a little bit bigger and a whole lot brighter. 

♥️

Andi