Count Your Blessings (Repost)

#12

Addition by Dr. Morris: My parents were reared in homes that had survived the Civil war, just two miles form one another. Both houses are still standing today, still in the family, old, beautiful wood framed houses painted white, in groves of big trees.

The church, built in 1874, both sides: great grandparents, grandparents, parents, all raised in the same church. I have been blind for a long time, but I can still hear the singing at that old church, “Count your blessings”. There were years in which the crops dried up in the fields, others they drowned in the fields, old folks died, young people died of disease or accidents. There were wars, hard times, but they still sang, “Count Your Blessings, named them one by one.”

I am convinced that God wanted me to see as much of the world as possible before I became totally blind. He did not want me to complain about my blindness, the poverty in which I was reared, the bad start my relatives and so many other people had in life. We are not stuck where we start. God wanted me to see the real poverty of the world, poverty not only in things, but in ideas, and efforts in spiritual expression. He wanted me to see the pyramids, not only in Egypt, but in Mexico and South America...wanted me to see temples, cathedrals, mosques, brush arbors, the museums in communist countries which had once been churches, the areas in the holy lands where Christ actually walked.

One can never understand blindness, I tell people to not even try it. I honestly believe that most people I know think that there times that I can see. Because I am able to take care of myself: food, clothing, business, etc. Believe me, nothing about blindness is easy...nor deafness, nor crippled body, nor crippled mind.

We do not have much record of Christ dealing with perfect people, rather the blind, the lame, sinners, and those making an effort to follow Him. He preached himself, He was either the world's greatest fraud, or He was who He said He was: the Way, the Truth, the Life. In spite of everything, God wants us to trust Him, as did His Son, Jesus Christ, and He will do the rest.

There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her. She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only see the world, I will marry you.'

One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend. He asked her, 'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?' The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him.

Her boyfriend left in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before they were yours, they were mine.'

This is how the human brain often works when our status changes. Only a very few remember what life was like before, and who was always by their side in the most painful situations.