"So blessed"

A phrase that I am hearing more and more in recent years is "I'm so blessed". These words, one similar ones implying that someone is so special they get preferred treatment over others. This shows up repeatedly in my Facebook newsfeed daily. "Look at my family, I'm so blessed", "I survived because of a team of forty doctors in the emergency room and surgery...but God has blessed me" while in another surgical suite, another person dies. These people either don't stop to THINK about the way their words come across about being so specially chosen for favors by an invisible god. A god who looks the other way when children die when neglectful parents leave them locked in hot cars to die a horrendous, torturous death. No god comes to "bless" them. A little child was recently beaten to death by his own mother and father, and no god came to "bless" him.

Don't people stop to think before they brag post about their "special blessings" that there are those reading those lovely comments with a broken heart, a loved one who is dying, a miscarriage, a lost home because of financial ruin, or a son or daughter just killed in Afghanistan. While we can appreciate the good things we have in life, treasure our families, be glad we have a roof over our head and be grateful and proud of a new job or promotion, there are others out there that the opposite has happened. I do not believe that I am more special than anyone else on this planet or deserve more than anyone else.

I became a grandmother earlier this year, and my granddaughter has brought me immeasurable joy, but to say that I am specially blessed...no. Am I very happy and love her very, very much, more than life itself? YES  But there are grandmothers out there who are losing their grandchildren to cancer and other terrible disease and accidents. Where are their "blessings"? Where are the "blessings" for the millions living in poverty that is not their faults? Where are the blessings of children abused at the hands of church leaders and those whom they trust? Where are the blessings for people wiped out in natural disasters while others survive to proclaim their "specialness". 

Life is random. Good things happen, and bad things happen to everyone. I've said this time and time again. There is NO GRAND PUPPETMASTER PULLING THE STRINGS OF BILLIONS OF PEOPLE. Life is what it is, and it is how we deal with it that matters...hopefully with grace and humbleness and not one of bragged self-perceived specialness.