Blessings and the Stock Market

I walked out to my Halloween decorated mailbox, reached my hand in to grab a bundle of bills, advertisements and letters.
On the way to the house I looked through the collection of mostly paper to be filed in the circular file. I saw an oversized envelope that boasted the return address from Morgan Stanley. Ah! My investment portfolio.
I have been opening them and putting them in my file without looking at the numbers that are slowly going downhill.
This day, with the stock market spiraling downward, I decided to sneak a peek at the numbers. Whoa! I was in for a real shock! I had lost $12,000 in one month! My spirit started to go down with the numbers on the page when I stood up and stopped myself.
What had changed from the moment that I had stepped outside to get the mail and the moment that I opened my large envelope?
Absolutely nothing! When I walked in the house the chocolate chip cookies that were baking in the over were still baking, the vacuum cleaner waiting to be used was still in the place that I had left it, the work to be entered into the computer was still waiting.
Nothing had changed and yet I was allowing numbers on a piece of paper to dictate my attitude.
Then it hit me. We are a country that is being paralyzed with fear. And we are allowing it! We grudgingly pay the rising food prices, cringe when we pull up to the gas pump, and then we sit around the table with friends and family and complain about the woes of the world.
There isn't anything that I can do about the stock market. But I can make a choice to forget about the numbers on that piece of paper in my mailbox with the return address from Morgan Stanley. Those numbers do not dictate the tone of my days, they do not scream to the world who I am. My net worth is not the human being I am.
The country's economic future may appear grim right now, but this too will pass. Until it does we owe it to the Dream Giver to thank Him for the gifts that He has blessed us with. And then give that piece of paper only the attention that it deserves...and appreciate the sound of every breath that you are able to take.




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