Travelling back from Bluewater in the car yesterday evening (see Friday’s bloggage for details) I had time to reflect a bit on the day. The morning service at our church blessed me immensely. It was not the singing or the sermon or the prayers or actually anything that happened in the service, it was the service itself. Being together with fellow followers of Jesus was a blessing on its own. Everything else was a bonus!

Then there was Bluewater itself. Not only did I get to drink some lovely coffee and meet some new people, but I had the opportunity to share some of my magic tricks and jokes with them (that’s three of my passions indulged already) but I was also able to share briefly about God having a sense of humour and what that means for us (a fourth passion). Personal chuffment came from a magic trick ‘what I built’ working as intended on the first time of trying in public! All are simple things but they blessed me..

And on the journey home, after the reflecting, I called my sister on the hands-free unit and had a good chat with her as I trundled up the A12. It was lovely to catch up with her, share news of our families and simply talk. And I really appreciated the company (I went to Bluewater on my own) as I drove, even though she was hundreds of miles away..

How often do we look for blessings in complicated and ‘significant’ things and overlook the many simple ways in which we are blessed by God through other people. The good old hymn encourages us to: “count your blessings, name them one by one…” Sounds like excellent advice to me. And when we have totted them up, lets not lose that attitude of gratitude!

Be blessed, be a blessing, keep counting…

You can find even find blessings in backhanded compliments:

A fellow computer programmer for a consulting group had designed some software for one of our largest accounts. He asked my help in putting it into operation.

At first, he handled most of the work. Eventually, though, he asked me to help with the last phase of the training. When I sat down with one woman and told her I would be showing her how to make changes to the files, she sighed with relief. “I’m so glad you’re teaching me instead of him.”

Surprised, I said that my colleague was far more experienced than I was.

“Yes,” she said, “but I feel much more comfortable with you. I get nervous around really smart people.”