T'is the Season for Giving

I love gifts. So much fun to get a gift and to be able to use it. And it is almost every day this time of year! So much fun. God pointed something out to me today - bear with me as it unravels.

There are three things I am compelled to do, I do it whether I do it for you or just for me.

I sing. I write. I refurbish.

You may not hear me sing, I don't get to do it as much as I would like these days. That does not mean it won't happen. I am just in a season of not publicly singing - oh but I sing. The car. The shower. All around the house. At work. I get busted occasionally at work.

Over the course of the last couple of years I have come to love the ability to blog. Not only do I get to write - I get to PUBLISH it. Do I make money from my grand pen? Nope. But it is very fulfilling to me. I enjoy it immensley. And I have done it long before I started my blog. I have notebooks upon notebooks of my writing. When I go back and read them, I cry, I am embarrassed, I laugh - I am amazed - by God's goodness to me.

Since I have been married, I have started a new thing. I refurbish things. I take the old and make it newer. I will post some pictures of some of my projects. But I have a crawl space full of things I intend to "makeover". I have chairs - one of which I snagged from someone's garbage in Mountain Brook and carried a mile home - while 5 months pregnant with child. I love that chair. I do not think I could get rid of it now for anything. Everytime I look at it, I think - "How in the world did I do that 5 months pregnant?" I have two chairs in my living room my Mom picked up from someones garbage. She got three - we remade two.  I love those chairs. She and I re-upholstered them together. I love those chairs. They remind me of my sweet Mom and the gifts I have acquired from her.

All of this to say folks is when I woke up this morning, I was going over my day in my head and letting God know that this day was his and everything in it. I was telling him my heart and I came downstairs to do my reading.

Look at what I read:

Romans 12:3-8

Serve God with Spiritual Gifts



3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. 4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

Here - Paul is relating God's desire for us to use our spiritual gifts to encourage and serve others. I think God wants us to do this with the other gifts he gives us as well. We should use them to serve others, to encourage others, to build others up. If you are sitting on the gifts - spiritiual - or physical - you are not fulfulling God's purpose for your life.

Find your gifts - use your gifts - give your gifts. You will be happier for it. The reason God gave the ultimate gift was for us to have life and have it more abundantly. The key is to use his liberal gifts for his glory!

John 10:9,10
9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me,he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Merry Christmas!