Blaine County Blessings

Have you ever noticed how easily conversations can turn negative? How it comes much more naturally to find something to complain about than something to be happy about? Of course, just turning on the news can almost always turn a good day into a bad day. Some of the ladies at the Chinook Alliance Church have been reading a book titled “One Thousand Gifts” by Ann Voskamp. In the book she encourages readers to write down blessings, things that bring you joy, that you’re thankful for. She made the statement, “Is the height of my joy dependent on the depth of my gratitude?”

She compares writing down blessings to “practicing” being thankful. We practice lots of things that are important to us such as sports, reading, exercising, and things we need to do for work. Why not practice being thankful? She says if we do it enough “it becomes second nature, and training is the essence of transformation.”

As we’ve been doing this, writing down blessings, we’ve gotten together a few times and shared our lists. We’ve found it not only blesses us, but we encourage each other too. We decided we’d like to pass the idea along. We came up with the idea of forming “The Blessing of the Month Club.” Each month we will ask everyone who is willing to share positive stories in the newspaper. Each month will have a different theme. At the end of the year, everyone who has entered at least one story will be invited to the Alliance Church for a party where we will celebrate the greatest blessing of all, the birth of Jesus. Hopefully this will be something that will really catch on and we will continue it over the years and have a party each December. We are open to ideas for monthly themes.

Keith and Keri Hanson were very supportive of the idea and said they would print the stories under the title “Blaine County Blessings.” If there are enough, they will print some each week. You can email your stories to bcjnews@itstriangle.com. You might want to call them at 406-357-3573 after emailing to let them know you sent something in case an unrecognized address goes into their spam. You can also mail in your stories or drop them off at the news office. We’re hoping for a great response, so we’ll need to make somewhat shortened versions of our stories. Be sure to sign your name to your story. Part of the fun is knowing where the story came from. The last week of the month we’ll put something in to tell what the theme for the following month will be.

Since Mothers’ Day is in May, the theme for May will be stories about moms. It can be your mom or grandmother, the mother of your children, a friend, or one you just happened to see somewhere. I’ll start by sharing a quick story about my mom. On my first day of first grade in Harlem, my good friend, Susie Richman and I walked together. We went into Mrs. Christiansen’s room. Susie’s name was called along with about half of the kids. Mine wasn’t. They were told to line up and they were going to Miss McDemott’s class. Susie said, “Betty and I are supposed to be together.” It turned out I was in Mrs. Christiansen’s class. I was quite sad. Mrs. Christiansen eventually called my mom. I can still see her coming through the classroom door. I ran over and jumped into her arms. After she calmed me down, I stayed and got along fine.

We hope you’ll all think about something to share. It can be funny or sweet, anything that brings a smile to your face and would brighten someone’s day. Blaine County is a great place to live. Let’s join together to share our blessings with one another.