To what do you attribute your good fortune? You had better believe you have good fortune. Note your good fortune, and count on it. You have been pulled out of more scrapes than you can imagine. You have been blessed. You are blessed. Count the ways.
Have a high opinion of your life. It has been filled with grace.
Instead of feeling sorry for yourself and dwelling on yet unfulfilled dreams or wrongs that you have experienced, witnessed, or read about, dwell on all the goodness in your life. Leave nothing out. You have had a long list of blessings heaped on you. Think about them for a change. Dwell on them for a change. Beloveds, you have an infinite list of blessings.
You woke up this morning, didn’t you? And, if you had not, that would also have been a blessing whether you know it or not.
The sky is above you. There is weather. There is cold, or there is warmth. There is sun, or there are clouds. Clouds are blessings too. They are like the sunglasses of the world. There is snow, or there is not snow. There are rivers and oceans. There are colors abounding, and sounds and sights and tastes and smells abounding. There is abundance.
There is milk, and there is honey. You are in the land of milk and honey.
There are hands, and you have palms. And there are palm trees, and there are dates.
There are people, all kinds of people, it seems. Sweet people, rough people, angry people, happy people, kind people, unkind people. There are all kinds of people, and there is you.
You had a roof over your head last night, or you had the canopy of the night sky and stars and a moon. Are not night and day both beautiful? And are you not beautiful? Even when you are quick to find fault, there is a God, and a God Who made you, and there is a God Who knows without doubt that you are beautiful, and a God Who asks you to get up from your troubles and leave heartache behind. Why carry it with you when you don’t like it?
Are not the homeliest babies as beautiful as the most beautiful babies?
Come on, beloveds, the world is a treasure house. The world is filled with everything, and everything is yours for the taking or for the asking. Take what you like. Take joy to heart, and do not take anything that is not joy to heart. Take joy into your heart. Begin with your thoughts.
Say to yourself: “I am the luckiest person in the world.” If you are weeping now and cannot find the way to say you are the luckiest person in the world, then say: “I am one of the luckiest people in the world.” And if you are weeping and cannot say that you are one of the luckiest people in the world, then say: “How lucky I am that I can weep. How lucky I am that God invented tears, and gave them to me. How lucky I am that God invented tears so that I might cry them and vent the heartache that hurts my heart. How lucky I am that my heart will heal. How lucky I am that tomorrow is another day. How lucky I am that I live through my hurts. How lucky I am that I am hardy and can leave sorrow behind me, or, how lucky I am that I can carry sorrow with me and carry on in the world. How lucky I am that I am alive. How lucky I am that I have a heart, and even when my heart aches, how lucky I am. I have a heart.”