The Gift of Everyday Chores

It is so important to count our blessings...  even when doing chores.

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Everyday Chores

“When I started counting my blessings my life turned around.”

Willie Nelson

Some look at chores as a drudgery. 

A task that you need to do to subsist daily.

The laundry, the dishes, the dusting, and general household chores. 

We complain, we whine, and wonder why we have to do it. 

While chores are redundant and a part of everyday life. 

Let us find a way to do them that does not create strife. 

While doing chores, try to make a way to count your blessings and maybe even pray.

Pray for your neighbor, your partner, or your friends. 

Dwell on all the blessings that you have been given.

Take a mundane task and make it into an exercise in thankfulness. 

In doing those chores you can bring your mind into a place of gratefulness.  

Take a task that could make you groan, turn it around and make this task a place of joy. 

Chores.  Who likes them?  I don’t think many folks would say willingly that the tasks of everyday life are a great source of joy and delight.  I have a dear friend who is always asking if she can pray for my family or myself.  I always find that question very touching.  Several years ago when my husband was having some significant health issues she shared with me that every time she brushed her teeth she prayed for him.  She brushed her teeth three times a day so those prayers were uttered three times a day.  That act really touched my heart.  Fast forward to this afternoon at my home.  There were 3 loads of laundry to fold, some dishes to be washed, the pets had shed everywhere, so there was some much needed vacuuming as well.  After drinking coffee and brooding a bit about the chores, I finally resolved to get these suckers done.  Before groaning and grunting I remember the simple but kind act of my friend saying prayers when she was doing the most mundane of tasks. With each action in our home, I tried to think of a person or situation that needed prayer.  Also during the chore time I made the mindful decision to start counting just how many blessings graced our lives.  When everything was finished, the blessings much outweighed the drudgery of the household tasks.  How many daily happenings that we look at with disdain can we turn around to actions where we pray, and we list what occasions in our life that are truly great?  In counting our blessings how can we become a blessing to others?  By passing this simple, yet effective mindset around.  Is it okay to get annoyed with chores?  Absolutely.  But to break the monotony up, why not put a meaningfully different mindset to the tasks at hand?  A spirit of thankfulness will open our eyes into a much more meaningful existence, a more purposeful mindset and a much deeper sense of meaning.  Take the mundane and make it imaginative. “Count your gains instead of your losses, Count your joys instead of your woes, Count your friends instead of your foes, Count your courage instead of your fears, Count on your health instead of your wealth, Count on God instead of yourself.”  Anonymous