Seasoned With Gratitude by Susan L.

  The last couple of posts have come down hard. Full of judgement. Full of my own ideas about how people should live and behave based my own personal standards, upbringing and life experiences. Although yesterday's post about winter was meant to poke fun at Canadians, myself included, I doubt the humour came across very clearly.
  Criticism is easy. Seeing what is wrong is easy. The hard part is finding solutions. The hard part is overlooking the negative and finding the positive in any given situation.
  This is a good country, taxes or not.
  I am safe to live on my own, shop on my own, travel on my own.
  I have a passport that grants me the ability to go where I might want to go.
  I have access to medical care and medicines as needed.
  I have adequate emergency services in my community: police, fire and ambulance who are well equipped to do their job.
  I am allowed to wear what I want.
  I can worship where I choose and speak freely about my faith without fear of arrest.
  I can go to school, read whatever I want, discuss ideologies, theologies, and any other ology that might arise.
  I can blog and have access to the internet.
  I can have a job and, as a citizen of this country, pay taxes. I can whine about it if I choose. ;)
  I have rights as an employee.
  I will have access to a government pension when I reach 65.
  I can own property: a home, a car, a cat.
  I have clean drinking water, lights that work, heat when the thermostat dips, and electric fans to ease the blistering heat of summer.
  I live in a country with incredible beauty where massive tracts of land have been set aside to forever preserve that beauty. There's one right across the road.
  This exercise in gratitude could go on for a long time. Each sentence has stirred up even more things to be thankful for.
  Forgive me, Lord, for taking these gifts for granted. Forgive me for looking through a critic's microscope.
  "But you, go your way till the end; for you shall rest, and will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days." Dan 12:13