"This thing is of Me"

I enjoyed another Monday with my small group. Having small group on Monday nights starts my week off in such a positive way. I gain so much!

I love the ability to use my blog as a forum for sharing what I learn each week and what I am working on accepting on this journey called life. T\his week the chapter in "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World" spoke of many things but there is one thing that stands out the most. Quoted from the book, "This thing is from me." Does this mean that ALL things are gifts?? I had to read this sentence over and over again. The bottom line: whether good or bad, elating or devastating, positive or negative, happy or sad, all things are from my heavenly father.

Like most people, it is extremely easy to accept the good things in our lives as being from him, a gift. The spouse/partner of our dreams, healthy children, beautiful homes, stable jobs, good health, supportive friends, "God Winks" when we least expect them and travel opportunities. When these things among many others occur, I am quick to thank God for my blessings and accept them as being a gift from him.

The flip side is that, for me, when something unexpected occurs such as an unexpected bill, a sick child, a parenting hurtle, death or illness, emotional disappointments, and life struggles in general, its not as easy to thank God and its certainly even more difficult to think of these things as gifts.

However, this week I am learning to find comfort in the statement "All things are from me." The good and the bad. Wow...this one is hard. But it makes sense to me. Being human, I don't believe that I am meant to understand all things as they occur. Rather the big picture is revealed to me on his time not mine. That's is where I often get stuck. In my mind, I want things to happen on "Stacie time" and well that just isn't going to happen. Something interesting that tied all this together for me in this book is that God's logic is not my logic. His logic is perfect. Mine is not.

So...I'm going to keep concentrating on the idea that "All things are from him," and that his logic is far better than mine even when I don't understand it. I suppose that's a pretty good definition of faith. Faith for me means believing and trusting even when I can't see the entire picture and even when I don't understand "the bad."

I got to share this with a close girlfriend that is having an emotionally and physically challenging week. She amazes me. She has faith and works hard on letting go of situations that she has no control over. It's admirable. I want to be like her when I grow up :)

Til then, I going to work on accepting my gifts even when I don't think the wrapping paper is very pretty :)