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In addition, sometimes publicly counting our blessings can cause inadvertent pain to others. We no more deserve our blessings than others deserve their pain. In a recent essay on Motherwell, Liz Becker writes: When we say we are blessed, when we refer to our marriages or pregnancies or children in this way, we say, whether intentionally or not, that we have been arbitrarily chosen for joy, and that all of the suffering in the world has been chosen as well. Every hashtag, every smiling angel emoji, is another tiny arrow aimed at the person who does not have these things, the couple who just failed a third round of IVF, the woman going through her fifth miscarriage, the single man or woman who has struggled through yet another breakup, the parents who have buried a child.
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Phoebe Farag Mikhail (Putting Joy Into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church)