Count Your Blessings #37 – Running in the Company of a Happy Few

Most of the time I like finishing a book, it’s an achievement. Sometimes, though, I’m a little sad that a book has finished this is normally because it has said something to me. Today I finished ‘A Resilient Life’ by Gordon MacDonald, this book has helped me in a number of ways. The last section of the book is about running in the company of a ‘Happy Few’. The quote comes from Shakespeare, The Life of Henry V – “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”.

The ‘happy few’ being characterised by being members of the group of people you would really want to be there at your bed side if you were dying. Now that’s an interesting question. Who would I want at my bed side if I was really dying? Who are my band of brothers?

In the book Gordon MacDonald lists the types of people we need in our group of ‘happy few’, he does this by posing a set of questions, I suppose we would call them ‘roles’ at work:

• Who coaches you?
• Who stretches your mind?
• Who listens to and encourages your dreams?
• Who will protest you?
• Who are those who share your tears?
• Who rebukes you?
• Who among your happy few plays with you?
• Who is it that seeks after God with you?

Reading through the list I was blessed by being able to see different people in my life who fulfill each of the roles. I am a truly blessed.

I think that most of you who fulfill a role know who you are and I want to use this opportunity to say thank-you, you are brilliant and it’s great to have you around.