Blessings abounding and shared

Whatever happened to treats? Finding a four-year-old who isn't jaded, jet-lagged and ‘big-city’-jaundiced is more difficult than finding a Tibetan yak-herder who knows about time-sharing.

Practically all kids seem to get video games, iPod,  iPad  and cell phones for their birthdays, fly to Sun City or some resort, take their holidays in Mauritius and have mapped out their careers before they have their permanent teeth - I'd rather not even go into the demands, expectations and wants of the typical modern teenager.

A treat used to be buying an ice lolly after school; being let off piano practice because you were running in the school sports; buying your first CD (seven-single or cassette); going to a movie without your parents; being allowed to pass around the snacks at the New Year party. If you were really fortunate, birthdays had jelly in half oranges, an ice-cream cake, tins of toffees, your first pair of nylons, a new elastic for your ‘ding-bat’, Monopoly ... As for your first aeroplane journey, why, that had you lying awake in an agony of anticipation for weeks…

There is, of course, nothing blatantly wrong about according and affording all the above – I just wonder how many are actually made aware to know, appreciate and savour these ‘treats’ with the correct amount of gratitude; moreover, the correct type of gratitude. Enjoying and sharing in the benefits of someone else's blessings is one of the gifts we seldom count amongst our own blessings. On the contrary they are the finest of all blessings, because they are shared blessings…

Let me take this opportunity to thank all of you who share your blessings with me, most times unknowingly, now there is the greatest blessing of all! God bless ~ Stafford