I’ve heard many talk about having other people guest post on your blog, and I really loved this idea, who says that I am the only person who needs to be heard? So here is my first guest post.

Hearing aid.

I grew up as the middle child of a family of five. We were very poor and to complicate matters my older brother and younger sister were born hearing impaired.

Many times it was a struggle for my parents to be able to hold things together both financially and emotionally. Most people are overwhelmed by money problems alone, but when you throw in the challenge that my siblings presented it would be enough to make quite a few people give up. Having said that my parents relied on me heavily to help them, which I always saw as a burden. In my defense what child would see caring for his brother and sister as a blessing?

burdens of life

Helping to care for them and watch over them was a full-time job which required a lot of patience, and that was the blessing. In growing up the way I did gave me patience and understanding well beyond my years and has been one of the biggest blessings that I could have ever asked for. We may not be able to see the blessings that are in our lives because we are too busy calling them our problems, but we as human beings grow most in difficult times.

When we look at our trials as blessings instead of problems we can transform our lives. Just like anything else in life when we have a positive mindset we can take almost any situation and use it to redefine our way of thinking and give us a better, more productive way of life. I want to challenge you to really examine your life and the hardships you have endured, try to see the strength that you have gained from those situations. I want you to see how, like a broken bone, when you are broken you can heal and become stronger.

Blessings of Life

Use your strength, use your experience. Help show others how to find their blessings, or simply be a blessing to them. Look for the opportunities wherever you can find them. I want to leave you with a little story, I remember a lazy morning at the local Tim Horton’s my wife and I were enjoying some peaceful alone time away from the kids. We were talking and having a wonderful Panini (I highly recommend the Chipotle Turkey Panini) when a man sitting across the aisle from us accidentally knocked his full cup off the table and on the floor. Ice tea was running everywhere.

A couple of women were walking by and laughed at the man, saying that they had been there too. I got up and helped the man clean up the mess and began to talk to him. Even though you could tell that this gentleman was really upset and embarrassed, as we talked and cleaned he began to calm down and feel better about the situation. This interaction caught the attention of the staff who came out and gave the man a free replacement of his drink. In the end what could have been another lousy situation for the guy actually turned into a blessing for him.

He was shown that people can care and that what seems like a bad situation may not always be one.

DLR