Counting the Blessings

Last night was a strange one, not what I really expected, then again, in my job I’ve learned to ‘expect the unexpected’ but last night got me thinking of what was, and what might have been. And counting the blessings that stopped them happening.

Let me explain a bit, see I work for a bus company, I started off about six years ago as a driver, but about eight months ago my role changed and I now work mostly in the office helping the bosses to coordinate the runs.

About six months ago we bought out the competition and ended up running all the routes in the city, that brought a few challenges, most of which are either driver or vehicle-related.

Yesterday we were a few drivers short, so I got the word I was going to be ‘on the road’ (I still love that part of the job, it’s something you REALLY look forward to when you’re working in the office) but the routes I was driving I wasn’t that familiar with as they’d changed quite a bit since I was last on them.

One road, in particular, I went down I hadn’t been there at night for years, and I found myself thinking of the last time I was there at that time of night.

Seven years ago I was made redundant, twice in the space of six months, I ended up with a job working seventy-five hours a week, permanent nights cleaning the streets, getting paid just over the minimum wage. At the time the economy had crashed, and we had two rentals as well as our own house that had dropped in value dramatically, the income from the rents didn’t cover the mortgages on the properties, and they were worth $100k less than we paid for them, we were in serious trouble!

But last night as I thought of all that stuff, I kept thinking of the song I learned in Sunday school “Count your blessings”  and that’s what I started to do.

I wish I could say the debt’s gone, it isn’t, and won’t be for a very long time, the houses are gone, but I do have a job, granted I work long hours, but it’s only sixty-five now instead of the seventy-five and I’m thankful for a company that allows me to work what I need to in order to pay my bills. We rent a better house than we could ever afford to buy, and life is pretty good really.

Yeah, life can seem to throw some pretty crappy things at us, but just stop for a moment, take a look at what else is going on, and you’ll see little blessings sprouting up, the shoots might be so small you have to look hard (they were for me six years ago) but they’re there.