“How many of you saw a red car on your way to church this morning?”

I remember hearing this question during a Sabbath school lesson. Not a single hand went up.

The presenter then asked, “If I had told you before coming to church to look for red cars, how many of you would have seen one?” Almost every hand went up.

His point was simple: what we look for, we notice. When we intentionally look for blessings, we begin to see them more clearly.

Our fourth child, Lukas, was born in September, and his arrival taught us this lesson in a very practical way.

During the two weeks before his birth, we had two false alarms. Each time, we packed the luggage and children into the car and drove nearly 80 miles to the hospital. Through those trips, we learned how to prepare, how to pack, and the quickest route, including a 10-mile dirt road with sharp turns and potholes.

Then, at 3:00 a.m. on September 10, Sumarie woke me: “It’s time to go.”

This time, it was real.

Within 20 minutes, everyone was in the car. As we drove through the darkness, I knew exactly where the worst potholes were and how to navigate them. Everything fell into place, and we reached the hospital in record time.

We had hoped for a natural birth, but after hours of labor and exhaustion, we chose a C-section. What could have felt like a disappointment became another blessing. During the operation, the doctors were also able to repair a problem with Sumarie’s uterus that had resulted from her previous C-section almost five years earlier.

Looking back, we saw blessing after blessing: the false alarms that prepared us, the difficult road that taught us, and the medical team that guided and cared for us.
If we could have planned everything ourselves, we probably would not have planned it better.

Sometimes the blessing is not in getting what we expected, but in seeing how God was working through what we received.

Count your blessings—and name them one by one.

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