The bombings at the Boston Marathon. The bitter fight over gun control. The ricin-laced letters mailed to the president and a senator. The deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant in central Texas. The hunt for the bombing suspects that had one police officer dead and the entire Boston area on lockdown. A powerful earthquake in Sichuan Province, China.
The news this week has been almost relentlessly terrible. Enough to leave even the strongest of us shaken and saddened. How do you keep yourself from being dragged down? How do you restore your positivity, your faith that we live in a good world at a time like this?
Fortunately I have smart colleagues to turn to. Join together in prayer, Colleen and Peola suggest. Look for the stories of hope and inspiration (and there always are) amid the darkness, Adam writes in his Mysterious Ways blog. Pray big, Rick says.
All such good spirit-lifting advice that I don’t have anything to add except this: Give thanks for your everyday blessings. I’ll start. I’m grateful that I get to work with such thoughtful, compassionate people. And I’m grateful that I get to come home to this (is there anything sweeter than an old dog?).
Yes, technically “everyday” means ordinary, but I think here it also means extraordinary. Because that’s what the blessings that fill our every day are.
