How Much We Take for Granted!

By Rob Blezard, October 31, 2012

One moment you’re in your warm house on a blustery October evening, seated at your computer writing emails and listening to storm coverage as your evening cup of tea cools.

The next moment your house is as dark and as silent as midnight, oozing heat to the eager cold.

There’s nothing like a power outage to shake up your world. Even 100 miles or so from the coast, my little town found itself at the mercy of Superstorm Sandy, as the weatherfolk dubbed it.

For 24 hours the village was without power, and it reaffirmed for Sharron and me how much we really have and how we really don’t think much about it. God has poured blessings aplenty into our lives – so many and so consistently that we hardly think of them.

Now I want to point out that ours was a very minor inconvenience, especially compared to our brothers and sisters in New York and New Jersey. We were never in danger, or too cold, too wet or too hungry.

And wearing sweatshirts and wool socks, we spent an enjoyable evening playing Scrabble by the light of oil lamps. It was nice!

Still, we missed plenty of things that we spend scarcely a moment thinking about when they are running in the background of our lives. Here is a list of the top ones:

– Heat. The thermostat turns it on automatically when it’s cold. How convenient is that?
– Computer use. It’s our lifeline to outside news, entertainment and communication. To get news during the power outage, we scoured the house to find a radio that worked on batteries, scoured for batteries, got the thing working and then waited (Wait? Wait? Who has time to wait?!) for the broadcast to give us information we wanted.
– Refrigeration. Fearful of losing groceries, we hauled the contents of our freezer to a friend across town who still had power (and deep freezers!).
– Light. Oil lights and candles are fine, but I found myself instinctively flicking the dead light switches to give me better illumination.

What’s your experience – not only with Superstorm Sandy, but anything that reminds you how much you have?

Copyright © 2012, Rob Blezard
(Photo © olesiabilkei – Fotolia.com)

About the Author

Rob Blezard is the website content editor for the Stewardship of Life Institute and serves as an assistant to the Bishop of the Lower Susquehanna Synod, ELCA, in central Pennsylvania. See more posts by .

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