It all started when I was living in Pamplona, a small Colombian village located in the Andes Mountains.

The organization I worked for, On the Ground International, runs three shelters. We did a ton of different projects to help keep the shelters running and help provide refugees with food, clothing, shelter, medical supplies, and more.

It sounds simple enough, right? Well, the shelters aren’t exactly five-star resorts. Our kitchen walls, originally purple, had become a cozy hangout for cockroaches. They clustered together in massive families—cousins, aunts, uncles, the whole crew—forming moving black splotches on the walls. Whenever I opened a cabinet, tiny cockroach babies darted for cover as if I’d caught them mid-heist. I couldn’t have these disease-carrying occupants swimming in my soup. That would make me and all the other shelter workers and refugees very sick. So every week, the cooks and I performed a unique task.

The first time I did it was during my first month on the job. The head chef, the Colombian version of Wonder Woman, had decided that she’d had it with the cockroaches.  Armed with a flaming rolled-up newspaper, she marched into the kitchen ready for battle.

“Sophia, get ready!” she barked.

“For what?” I asked.

Suddenly she torched the wall.

Have you ever taken a walk outside when it first begins to rain? First there are one or two drops and then suddenly the sky opens and unleashes a downpour. That’s pretty much what happened, except the raindrops were cockroaches. The descending victims scrambled in every direction. I shrieked like a maniac and started stomping, hopping around as though my shoes were on fire.

“Aplástalos!” the cook yelled. “Stomp them!”

Two cockroaches somehow got into my hair. One of them soon fell down inside my shirt. The kitchen turned into a battleground of crunches and screams as I stomped for dear life.

When the dust settled, I looked around, panting, roach guts smeared on my face. The smell of singed cockroaches hung in the air.

“I am the most unfortunate person on earth,” I told God with dismay and no little disgust.

But you know what? I was wrong. As “unfortunate” as I felt at that moment, I was the most blessed person in the whole shelter. Even with cockroaches crawling on me, I had a bed to sleep in. I had shoes on my feet. I owned a toothbrush. I hadn’t needed to pack up my life and leave my country. I hadn’t said goodbye to my family, unsure if I’d ever see them again. Even on my very worst days working in those shelters, I felt blessed.

May I make a suggestion? If you own a pair of shoes, feel blessed. If you own a toothbrush, feel blessed. Every day that you wake up in a bed, talk to a family member, and fill your tummy with food, well, that’s a day you should praise the Lord for.

Because God has blessed you beyond imagination.