I choose Gratitude

Wow! 2019 has only a few days to end and we will usher in another year.
A lot of things didn’t go the way I had planned, not that I started the year with so many goals but I had three specific goals in mind, only one was achieved.

So I won’t dwell on the things I haven’t achieved because I am ending this year with a grateful heart. I am here to count my blessings, name them one by one as the popular hymn admonishes, am counting my blessings to see how far I have come.
Can we really count all of our blessings, maybe the ones we can see, what about those we cannot see?

These and many more are a tiny weeny bit of the blessings I enjoyed this year
I enjoyed good health in the year 2019, I mean good health, even malaria that is so common in this part of the world was not my portion like we popularly say here.
My family enjoyed good health, we didn’t need to go to the hospital for any reason nor did we have any need to visit a loved one in the hospital.
With the bad roads all over Nigeria and accidents, here and there, my household and I were preserved. No road or domestic accidents.

My marriage had its fair share of crisis, I got to points where I just want to give up but I hear a voice behind me saying this is the way, walk therein, here we are still standing
No death in the family, both home and abroad.

I wrote a professional exam and passed
I paid some of my debts
I got a remote job even though it lasted a month, I still earned money working from my bedroom. Seriously hoping and praying for another door to open.

I got to learn and still learning about a lifetime opportunity that will earn me money even when am old and gray, my insurance/pension in old age, its part of my retirement plan
I got a new job with ease and it’s just what I had prayed for
I got the courage to seek about assisted reproduction, its baby steps  but I trust it will be  an  answer to my prayers

There was a sweet reunion in my family.
We got new additions in the family; my younger brother, niece, and cousin each had a baby in the year.
My mother became a great grandmother in her 60s, I mean how cool can this year be.

I took some life-defining decision in my marriage and stuck with it howbeit painful to hubby, I resorted to taking the back seat and letting him drive the home financially, one of the best decisions I have made this year, I don’t have to sweat about the financial obligations of the home, I have been taking the lion share but now decided to take a chicken share, which is so so much better, now I have extra to splash on myself. I can spend on me, myself and 1 spending without quilt. It’s so liberating.
Why do we women feel guilty and men feel entitled when spending money on personal stuff.

One of my New Year resolutions is to kick guilt out of my life and take care of me because I truly deserve it. I won’t agonize over every penny I spend on myself thinking it will look better in a pot of soup.

 

I have decided to let another worry over that pot of soup, I have had more than my fair share of making sure there is a pot of soup, come to think of it, must it be a pot, it can be half pot of soup or even a bowl of soup. Soup is soup. I got a salary and for the first time in years I splash on clothes for myself, me singing “what a feeling” in Irene Cara’s voice

Okay back to my list.

I haven’t lost my salvation, I still love God more than anything. It is the part of loving my neighbor as myself I still grapple with. In spite of my unfaithfulness, I see His amazing love in my life every day
I have the most amazing support group, my friends are God sent, they got my back

I am thankful my home isn’t violent, there hasn’t been any slaps, punches or kicks. To the woman experiencing it, you have the power to put a stop to it, it lies within you.

Thank God for my husband, he has picked the lion share without complaining, (here I go again about lions and chicken), truth be told I expected resistance, I haven’t seen so far although I haven’t given up on seeing it wink! wink!

I thank God for my children, I love you and am expecting you real soon.

Above all, I thank God for the gift of life so sweet

So what are the things you are grateful for, you will be surprised when you start to count.

Wishing you a merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.