Are you blessed?

When was the last time you stopped to consider just how “blest” you are?

I’m talkin’ about by the people around you, places you’ve traveled, sights seen, fragrances that “take you back” by their aromatic beauty. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, as it seems the “blessings just keep on coming”.

Everyday…is a blessing. Steaming up the bathroom mirror. Looking around and "seeing" a messy room with all my “stuff”. Walking down a flight of stairs. Hearing the sound of my “Brides’ voice. Getting a “whiff” of my smelly dog, Jack, who has a major case of “bad breath"!

It’s all a blessing……………… cause' I am alive!

A few years back I was on one of several Mission Trips to South Africa. We had been ministering in the central city of Bulawayo, in Zimbabwe. After completing my work there my associates and I were traveling by truck back to Victoria Falls. We decided to take a detour and left the main road to drive thru a major portion of Hwange National Park.

Hwange at the time was home to over 50,000 elephants. Meeting a “naturalist” during our visit made it special as he gave us an explanation of all we were seeing. He went on to say the population of elephants was about 25,000 too many and that “poaching” is a major problem. The Government of Zimbabwe had issued a “shoot on site” order to their Rangers for anyone seen carrying a firearm inside the park. While talking with this man, shots range out and sadly,two such poachers were killed.

Getting back to my story….driving thru this amazing land we saw many of the animals that make this place home. Birds, reptiles, all sorts of mammals and insects….you name it…we saw it.

I recall stopping to watch a huge elephant at a distant waterhole drinking in sight of a Croc. Then there was this absolutely beautiful Giraffe walking down a nearby path. If you've never see an animal like this walking without a fence between you and it….you have missed so much; their graceful stride,…. enormous size, ….and gentle spirit….….they are absolutely beautiful.

It is easy, without realizing it, to accidently stop on a path many of the creatures walk on day bye day. This was the case further on down the road.

Unknown to us we had stopped in the path of a bull elephant. A monster if I every saw one. Grabbing the camera to shoot close-up photos of this animal in the wild, we noticed his ears flapping straight out………..then he started backing up. My host, a South African and very familiar with such encounters, began to shout………..… "heeeeeeeeeee’s gonna charge”!

In the “blink of an eye” here came this “behemoth” in full charge……only to stop just short of the truck we were in that had been frantically spinning its wheels to get out of his way!

Later, my host, sez’ “oh, that was just a false charge”! You sure couldn’t prove it by me as it scared the “begeebers out of me”!

Was that a blessing or what………how many people can say they have been “charged by an African Elephant", and lived to tell about it?

Yes, I am Blest