Brave Enough To Be Bliss

So anyway, that was the key to me being able to pray again. Not because I think God will make things happen, but so I can have a relationship, so I can talk to Him and so He can speak to me through the Holy Spirit. I've learned to listen to the nudges when they come and that's what I find is most valuable about prayer. Not asking for things to happen to make our lives easier or less painful but asking for help to know in our hearts and souls and through gentle nudging and through other people what is right for us. I know while you were growing up, Kylee, I didn't share much about God and my faith, but that isn't because I didn't want to, I was just scared to. I want to share now, not to make you believe things the way I believe them but just because it's part of who I am and I actually want you to know all about your mom, not learn everything from the book or after I die. And that leads me back to the message from the church. I wanted to share it with you because I thought it demonstrates what I was trying to do with the house downpayment gift. I am sacrificing for you two because I have loved you til it hurts and all that's left is more love. Pure love without expectation. You have my love whether you want it or not, and you don't have to do anything to earn it or keep it. It's just there. A constant in life you can count on. Adam's sermon last week was about blessing God, being blessed by God and being a blessing to others. I think we bless God when we are blessed and we in turn bless others. I don't think of blessings as only something He gives us, but rather what we choose to do with our lives and how we choose to live and serve others. Knowing that not everyone has been raised the same, in the same conditions, with the same people or with the same challenges, I feel blessed because I didn't grow up in complete poverty with the types of challenges that so many other people have in this world. That doesn't mean my childhood was happy or without pain or that there weren’t financial issues because there were, I’m just making the point we all have a story, we all have challenges. Some people choose to believe everyone should be able to help themselves because they did. Some people can, but I don't think because of a variety of factors everyone has the knowledge or the belief in themselves to lift themselves up, so sometimes we need to lend a hand or whatever else we can to give others encouragement, help, support, hugs, care, money, food, etc. We sacrifice at times and become a blessing to others so they in turn can someday bless someone else. Fear can keep us from being that blessing sometimes. There are times we have to listen to that fear and keep ourselves safe and other times we have to have the courage to be the blessing someone may need. Each of us has to listen and search our own hearts and souls to be able to know when it is right to reach out and when it is not. It's a personal decision and I wouldn't ever tell anyone they should do something they are uncomfortable with. I mention this simply to say challenging ourselves when fear arises to determine which it is, a legitimate healthy fear to protect us or an old fear in our minds trying to protect us from something or someone we don't actually need to be protected from. People who think differently, look differently, and behave differently are easy ones for us to just give in to the fear and back away. But at times asking ourselves is this legitimate or not, can lead us to have the most amazing interactions with people and at times, can change our lives for the better or at a minimum maybe make us learn something important about ourselves for the future. The lady who wrote the message benefitted greatly from her grandmother's gift and there are times anonymous gifts can be good, but there are others when knowledge can be shared, relationships can be enhanced, and joy can be received from both the giver as well as the recipient when the gift isn't anonymous. Clearly with the lender an anonymous gift wasn’t even possible in this situation, but even if it could have been, part of the reason I wanted to give you this gift was also to give you the knowledge about why I was doing it. First, I wanted you to have the benefit of a house that really would “fit” you and your family. Second, I wanted to be able to share this message with you about blessing others and ask you to both take it very much to heart and search your own souls about how you can be a blessing to others throughout your lifetimes. I never feel I have to do anything for you around the house, I do those things as an act of service because I love you. Each time I do a household chore, it is to save you time because I know you work hard and it's a little thing, I can do to perhaps make your day a little easier. I remember what it is like to be at your age and your stage in life and I

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