Blessings bestowed

       I try to be a very good person, Certainly I fail and there are times when I am sure I have failed miserably. I pray that I am not judged on those failed moments in my life. Rather, I would like to be judged on my intent and the few good things I actually have done, willingly done and lovingly done.  If there is a tally in heaven ( I doubt that there is ), I hope the plusses outweigh the minuses. 

        I am thinking about this as I take stock and thanks for all the wonderful things in my life that I have been graced with. Too many to mention but I try to acknowledge them. I cannot help but think "I must have done something good" , a line from the Sound of Music. What have I done to deserve such grandiose and lustrous gifts? Blessings on blessings.  Perhaps I am blessed to open my eyes and simply have the ability to see them. Someone else might only see the negatives from my life. 

       How would you see your own life?  Do you see the blessings or too busy lamenting any hardships? 

       The Scripture today goes to the heart of what we feel we deserve in life. Apparently what God sees and judges is not the human terms we often mete out.  Was it right that the person who worked one hour got a full days pay?  It seems to me that God is trying to tell us we are all graced not so much by what we do or did but because God simply loves us. God sees us as a parent, full of opportunity to become, to be and to love.  What we see as humans is mostly markedly different and skewed.

         We need to know that God loves us with reckless abandon because there is something in us that is innately good and full of glorious potential as she created us. God don't make junk. How many times have I written that down?

         Ask yourself, do you deserve the blessings? Know that you do and that God loves you at least as much as every other creation of hers.

Matthew 20:1-16

‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’