A friend recently shared this quote with me:

Prosperity does not equal the favor of God, and adversity does not signal His absence.

That’s fairly easy to believe when your life is good.  Your wife dies, and you begin to question, why in the heck us?  I don’t think I believe we did something wrong to lose God’s favor, but there are a lot of other people out there who haven’t gone through what we’ve just been through.

 One time last year Michelle said, “Daddy, could we give mom’s cancer to someone else?” 

I asked, “Do you have anyone particular in mind?”  

She said, “No.”

“Honey, I don’t think we can give anyone mom’s cancer and I don’t believe anyone would take it if we could.  But I like that you’re thinking outside of the box.”

“I was just wondering.”

To be honest, I’ve looked at some and thought to myself:  Why couldn’t it have happened to them?  We do a lot more on this earth than they do  – especially Lisa (I’m sure I wasn’t thinking about YOU specifically when I had these thoughts, it was someone else).

If I think about my life honestly, even without Lisa, I have a LOT of blessings:  healthy and wonderful kids, a family that loves us enough to do our laundry and a bunch of other dirty stuff, financial security, incredible friends, and the list goes on and on.

Haven’t you seen folks who seem to have a really crappy life and yet they always seem happy and at ease with who they are and what they have?  I hate people like that.  I hate them because they make me look so selfish and bad.

At times I get annoyed at myself for spending so much time feeling sorry for me.  How can I, Danny Tanner, with all that God has given me, complain?

In my grandmothers final years, she developed some form of senility.  In her final months, she would sit and write “Count you many blessings” on a sheet of paper over and over and over again.  At that point in her life, it didn’t look like she had many.  I think it’s interesting that those are the words that stuck with her during the worst period of her life. 

I challenge you to make a list of your blessings.  I bet most of us have too many to count.