everything i have. everything i am.

The other day, some sweet friends asked if they could come by to 'pamper' me.  While the lot of our children played, I got the royal treatment!  Breakfast (sweet & savory crepes) and an oh-so-relaxing foot treatment.  I wasn't allowed to do as much as stand up to show them where my dishes went(!).  To finish things off, we all talked through some of the thoughts/fears of what lies ahead (baby, baby, baby!) then they all prayed over me.

Not that I don't know it, but those moments really hit home to me as to how blessed I am.  How overly fortunate I am to have people love on me and take care of me.  In those moments, I know I thought, "How come I don't appreciate this all the time?"

As the day continued, it began to unravel in my mind how "difficult" I find it to receive.  From my husband.  From my friends.  From God.

I starting running with the overall idea that this must be the root of why I couldn't see ~ I just have a hard time receiving.

Until I read this:

For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart?
And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for?  Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God?  
1 Corinthians 4:7

"Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God?"  Yes, and yes.

My difficulty isn't in receiving the wonderful and beautiful gifts I get to experience each and every day-my family, grace, the love of Father...  My shortcoming is receiving that those are given to me.  Like I wrote about before, I need to receive from the source (here I go again, learning and re-learning the same things!).

There is not a thing I can say that I have that I have not received.  Including this revealing thought.


pic pix: sometimes, taking a look down at where you stand reveals so many different details ... at times, even more interesting than the "big picture" stuff around, Kootenay Provincial Park, BC, Sept.2013