Mixed blessings

All of us have had times in our lives when we've struggled with mixed blessings. Your teenager has wrecked the car; no one was hurt. You've been waiting at the airport for the last three hours for your parents who were due to arrive on the next plane. Now that has gone amiss, too, and you get to wait some more. Later you find out traffic on the freeway home was backed up for miles because of a chemical spill.

Blessings, taken for granted; gifts no one wants -- what is commonly called a mixed blessing. It feels as though some days rather than divining our good, our higher power is busy divining our demise. Take heart, I think you're not alone.

Imagine this scenario. Your teenage daughter comes home with news that she's pregnant. She claims she's not been with a man, just an instrument of her God. You're thinking she needs psychological help. The young boy involved says he didn't do anything wrong either but has the same dilemma with his parents. The plan: parents and teenagers will all stick with the same story, something about dreams and immaculate conception, and they run away. Blessings all the way around!

True story: A kind man, business partner with two others, finds himself confronted one day by his longtime business associates and friends with the fact that he is being put out. The business has been in some serious financial trouble and they offer him a settlement of $10,000 or 35,000 shares of worthless stock in a pet food company. Unsure what to do, he decides he will sleep on it. That night he has a dream that he is traveling in a Jaguar on a most treacherous road with many hills and valleys, but in the end he reaches his destination and all is well. Since the Jaguar is a powerful and cunning cat, he decides this is a sign that he should take the stock in the pet food company. The next day he decides that since $10,000 won't begin to touch his debt, he takes the stock. In a few short years not only does he turn this pet food company around, but has more money and happiness than he could imagine. He credits two things, his angels working through his seemingly ruthless business partners and his dream about driving a Jaguar.

Caroline Myss PhD, author and medical intuitive, gives this picture of a mixed blessing. One day you're home going through your usual routine, bored, you ask yourself for the hundredth time, what's my life all about? But this time you really mean it. Your angel listening begins to take action. She feels it's definitely time for some changes and gives you three months to make those changes or she will in her own way. Once again, time slips by. Unwilling to make waves or leave that job that has never suited your higher good, she has you fired. Suddenly you find the relationship you are in is rockier than ever and boom, it flies out the window as well. Where's the blessing in that?

Two Christmas angels traveling stop at the home of a wealthy couple for the night. The couple was rude -- offering a meager meal and a cold dusty room in the basement. While there, the wiser angel sees a large hole in the basement wall and repairs it. The next night they come to rest at the home of a very poor farmer and his wife. They were kind and gentle, offering a wonderful meal and insisted they sleep in their bed so they would be rested for their next day's journey. Upon arising the next day, they found the farmer's wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field. The younger angel, infuriated, asked ''how could you let such a thing happen. You so kindly repaired the basement wall for those people who offered us so little, yet you let these peoples' cow died who offered us everything .''

The wiser angel answered, ''I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall and since the wealthy people were so obsessed with their greed, and unwilling to share their good fortune, I sealed the wall so they wouldn't find it. Then, last night the angel of death came calling for the farmer's wife. I gave him the cow instead. Things aren't always what they seem.''

This holiday, if you're dealing with the rocky road of mixed blessings, take heart. Although it may not seem like it, some angel somewhere is plotting and planning your soul's greater good.

Till next time, Seasons Greetings, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays! Rebecca





Uploaded to The Zephyr Online December 19, 2000

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