abundance

I sit here this morning with a heart overflowing with gratitude. We had a housewarming shower yesterday, from our church family, and they really just “blessed our socks off!” I told my husband last night that I almost feel guilty by how much they blessed us!

I have just been in amazement lately by how much God has blessed us. I am just overwhelmed, and my heart is full. It’s not because of “stuff” that I have received, it’s more because I know it’s God blessing. It just seems that He has been pouring out blessings for our family recently.

For example, this house to which we just recently moved. I’ve told people, time and again, it’s as if God just took a checklist of all the things we desired in a home, added a few desires we didn’t even think about, and said, “Here ya go.” I mean, seriously, we have a WATERFALL in our backyard!! Not one we built ourselves, one that is formed by natural rock with a little creek running over it! If anyone knows us, they know that had to be God to provide that kind of beauty in our very own backyard!

Another example, I had a truck that I absolutely loved. It was really hard to decide to sell, but we decided, in order to lessen our monthly cash outflow, we’d go ahead and sell it. It was an item that car dealerships were really looking for, and we came across a really sweet deal. So, now, we are without one car payment, and I’m driving a Cadillac!! Yeah, I know, that’s hard to believe, but it’s true.

These are just two of the many blessings we have received lately. I am just simply in awe of my God. Some would try to argue that it’s just circumstantial or, even, coincidental, but I’d have to disagree. I believe in a God who is the Creator of the universe, the Creator of my being, and the author of time and space. He is a God who loves us enough to send His only Son to die for our sins. He is a God that cares about the world’s greatest catastrophe and the smallest sparrow that falls from a tree. He’s just a good God, and I’m so thankful I serve Him.

Do you know Who I’m talking about? If you don’t, I encourage you to meet Him and get to know Him on a personal level. I promise you, He won’t disappoint you, and He will never let you down! 😉

John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

We all have our quirks and our peculiarities. My husband is so comfortable in his; I have to be honest, sometimes, I’m downright jealous. I know, I know. I shouldn’t be jealous of my own husband! I just wish I could be okay with my oddities all the time.

I love fall and winter weather, but I am incredibly cold-natured. I hate raw tomatoes; however, I love to eat anything made with tomatoes, as in spaghetti, pizza sauce and chili, and I love to make stuff from tomatoes such as salsa and vegetable soup. I love to sleep with socks on, and I can sleep just about anywhere, but if you wake me up about an hour after I go to sleep, I may not even remember our conversation by morning. I also have a love-hate relationship with the snooze button. I love to meet new people, and carry on long conversations with one or two people; yet, I am an extreme introvert, and I have to revive myself by having long moments of solitude.

Yes, I am a quirky individual, and after 40+ years of living with myself, I am still trying to be okay with these traits. I know, we all have quirks and differences to our personalities, and so many people seem completely okay with theirs, and I am, genuinely, so happy for them. Some even seem a little too comfortable…to the point of rudeness to those around them, and I suppose, this one fact alone causes me to hone in too strongly on my own idiosyncrasies for fear of possibly becoming like them.

I am so concerned with not being rude or offensive to another person, even unintentionally. All my life, I have been conditioned to be kind and accommodating, and I have always had a pretty adaptable personality; so, the moments when someone is offended or bothered by something I have done or said, I am profusely apologetic, sometimes, even to a fault.

Yet, as I grow older, I am learning that this over concern for other people’s opinions can, often, actually be derived from a source of pride and vanity. You see, no matter how “nice and sweet” a personality trait may seem, on the flip side of it is an uglier, less delightful sounding trait. It can be used for either extreme, and we must realize what the root is in order to come back to center, Christ’s center.

Just as the opinionated, outspoken person can be seen as both truthful and rude, overbearing and bluntly honest, depending on the positive and negative extremes, the tolerable, quiet spoken person can be seen as both graciously kind and fearful, flexible and weak. All of these (negative) extremes come from a root of vanity and pride, ambition and envy, and we must recognize, acknowledge and surrender these qualities to God before we move to the extremes of either side.

When we refuse to let the flesh reign in our lives, and, instead, allow Christ to rule and reign, we will find that we will no longer worry over what people think, and we will worry most about what HE thinks. We will no longer err on the sides of brashness and fearfulness, but rather, we will walk in complete boldness of who we are in Christ, even with all our quirks, failures and peculiarities.

When we surrender our all to Him, we will begin to actually see ourselves as He sees us, not as the world sees. We will begin to believe as He believes and act as He acts. When we are totally surrendered to Him, we will become a mirror of His life, because it will be His Spirit living in us and through us. ❤