February 15, 2021

My daughter’s big, blue eyes sparkled as we headed toward the gigantic, old-school gumball machine. Try as they might, my children were unsuccessful in controlling what color that bright-red machine spit out, which regularly led to epic meltdowns.

But on this day, I was pleasantly surprised by my daughter’s resolve to avoid such a meltdown and gratefully accept whatever color she got. And, when a shiny blue treat wound its way down, she did indeed happily accept it.

All was calm … until her little sister’s quarter produced the prized and highly coveted reward among little girls: a glistening, pink gumball.

For isn’t this just like us? We’re content and grateful … until we start looking around. We give thanks for what we have … until we scroll through social media and see what others have. Suddenly, our “gumball” doesn’t look so appealing.

Comparison begins its ugly churn inside our hearts. We start thinking life would be a whole lot better if only we had …

Before we know it, we too are wailing about what someone else has.

When we take our eyes off our blessings and focus on the gifts we see others receiving, we lose sight of the good and gracious gifts we have in our lives. Instead, we begin believing the lie that everyone else has it better.

The difficult but liberating truth is it’s irrelevant what color “gumball” someone else has. Keeping our gratitude vertical sets us on a path of peace and contentment.

There is so much to be grateful for if we have eyes to see it. As J. Oswald Sanders states: Eyes that look are common. Eyes that see are rare.

Let’s choose to intentionally see the blessings lining our lives. When people come near us, let’s determine to dispense something good—something that will benefit them—out of the store of grace and being obsessively grateful for who we are and what we have.

-Adapted by Meredith Houston Carr