How many blessings do you have?

     I'm sitting here contemplating my blessings this evening.  A lot has come up recently and I thought I would share a little bit. 

     It's summer time, and as "tradition" has shown me in my job, that summer time has less monies coming in.  To this, the last 3 summers have been difficult for us.  Falling behind on bills, not having enough monies to go on a vacation like "normal" American's or even providing foods for the family at times.  We have NEVER gone hungry, thanks to many people that care about us.  Whether it was a person from church notifying someone to have us get a referral to the bishops storehouse or someone randomly dropping off potatoes or a friend saying they are making dinner for us or even a friend dropping off laundry soap(cuz we were out) so laundry could be done and payday wasn't for another week.  I understand that the Lord is trying to help other people out by having them serve us.  What I am trying to understand is when am I, a person that works 80 hours a week --> whether I can move or not is not in question, going to be able to actually accept help without feeling like a burden to others?

     What do we consider blessings?  A special message from a friend, following a prompting to check up on an individual, a home, transportation, electricity, a bed and clothing.  One blessing that sticks out in my mind is: (I really don't remember when, but I know it was in the summer), we didn't have any money for gas in the car, but I still had business as usual.  I needed to get gas for probably about a week.  I drove around town with the gas light on, completely on empty the entire time.  I was able to be paid (finally), and filled up my vehicle.  my vehicle holds 17 gallons of gasoline.  When I filled up, 19.1234 gallons were poured into my vehicle!  That is 2 gallons and some change OVER what my tank is SUPPOSE to hold.  I was so shocked I took a picture of that and sent it to a couple people. 

     The reason for this post is this:  I was again trying to figure our how I was going to pay all my bills, buy groceries and pay all the other necessities.  We sat down to dinner with 3 of the kids I care for and my family and we had a visitor shortly after beginning dinner.  The visitor was someone we knew well.  He randomly stops by, not very frequently though.  So when this visitor showed up, I was thinking something was wrong.  He asked us "Do you have room in your freezer?"  I Replied "oh yes".  <--- both freezers were completely empty.  The only thing in the one freezer was ice on the side of the freezer wall.  This person, MUST HAVE been prompted to come over.  He filled our freezer with approximately 250 pounds of ground beef!  Uhm, seriously!!!  He was shocked that our freezer was empty, and I simply replied, "Glad to know we can be poor at the right time!"  He chuckled, but its the truth.  Scrimping and saving has got to be the hardest thing we do around here. 

     So I began thinking about my blessings.  What are my blessings?  I can name most of them (there are a lot of blessings): Jason, Allyson, EmmaLei, My mother, my Father (yes, I just said that), bro #1, bro #2, my home and EVERYTHING in it, my vehicles and the gas to go in it, our successful business and ALL my friends/clients that go with it, we have air to breathe, I can see all that my Heavenly Father has made in nature and I can speak to others.  I have all my limbs and senses.  We are able to have the interwebs and other technologies.  I have friends and family that care about me and my well being. I have a phone to communicate with.  Everything I have is a blessing.

     Even though we have all these blessings I mentioned before, sometimes it is pretty easy to focus on the "wrongs" or trials in life, like- I have illnesses and diseases or even allergies, there isn't enough money for things I WANT, I don't like my neighbors (across the street ones), I get stressed easily and the list goes on and on. 

I think I may just write down my list of blessings.  This way I can look at them when I need a little pick me up, which will probably be a lot more often than I want. 

All I can say right now, is I am so grateful for those that listen to promptings.  My life has been blessed because of them.  As I mentioned before in my other post:  The Lord is mindful of our needs, wants and desires! All I know is I am a blessed person!