Counting Your Blessings

[pull_quote align=’left’]”Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward with the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence.” ~Og Mandino [/pull_quote]

Think of life as a road. When driving down a road, we come upon all types of things — delays, detours, traffic, accidents, you name it — that ultimately determine whether we move forward or if we come to a temporary halt. Roads take us on a variety of paths. We can move forward, we can go backwards, we can take exits, and sometimes we can end up hanging on for dear life riding on the  side of the road. Even though there are hundreds of others cars and trucks on that road with you, no two cars or trucks are the same. That’s something that we as young women should internalize for ourselves. No two women are alike. We are each fearfully and wonderfully made. Therefore no two journeys are going to be the same which is why focusing on the accomplishments and success of others can be detrimental to our personal growth.

A wise woman once told me, “When you focus on the blessings of others too much, you become blind to your own.” We all have a handful of people that we look up to simply because of their accomplishments and we hope to one day be as successful as they are, but we must not beat ourselves up if we find ourselves at a dead end or sitting on the side of the road. While you might see that person’s success, what you didn’t see was the hard work, struggle, and amount of effort that it took for them to get to where they are.

Always remember that God has a blueprint of our lives mapped out. We are each here to serve a purpose and even though the person that you compare yourself to might have the same career goals and aspirations as you, their purpose is not your purpose and until you realize your own purpose, you won’t be able to move forward in life.

Through all the pressure that we as young women of color are often faced with as we try to meet society’s standards, we must also know that each and everyone of us are given different gifts, talents and strengths. Being jealous or envious is what causes one to develop negative feelings towards someone for something that should be praised. It’s also what stifles us and keeps us locked down in souls that have broken transmissions and faulty gears.

When we learn to appreciate ourselves, we can then appreciate the accomplishments of others without self-loathing. Count your blessings and you will begin to see the good that is coming your way.