God's Blessings

This was an email I sent to a few people close to me today, but I thought I would post it here also.
_________________________

So, I've been thinking a lot about God and our journey to have this baby. Often as we were waiting to get pregnant I kept wondering, what does God want to teach me? What am I missing? What have I done that he would withhold this from me? Very slowly I began to learn that He just wanted me to give up control of my life and my desires. I remember sitting at small group at Nathan and Sherri's house one night stating how God was teaching me that He was withholding the very thing from me that I desired most because, well, I desired it more than I desired Him.

It still took me a while to change that mindset and I honestly do not think I did until I started reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. My attitude and heart have changed so much over the past few months just realizing how BLESSED we already are (even without all the things we WANT in our lives). God has given us a million things a day to be thankful for (the cool spring breeze coming through the window, trees blossoming, a child who tells you "My name is Santa Clause and I just like to shake my booty at Christmas parties", DVR'd TV shows, and of course the bigger things in our life like our house, our family, our full pantry). Why do we focus on the negative? The things we don't have? The way we WISH our life was?

My eyes have been opened.

Funny thing is...I was beginning to become perfectly OKAY with God's plan and ideas for our life...even if that meant never having another baby from my womb. I just want more of God and more of what HE wants for my life. I was/am closer to God than I have ever been in my life.

I don't know why he withholds blessings from anyone else, but I *do* know for me it was to teach me to love Him the most and to be THANKFUL for the things He has given me and is giving me.

I asked for prayer this weekend that I would not forget what I have learned. That I would not become complacent now that I *do* have what I have been asking for.

I have struggled with understanding God in all of this and understanding if he really does withhold blessings to teach us something, so I wanted to go to the bible and see what it says. I stumbled across an article about Hannah (who God closed her womb until she gave up control of her life and her child's life...sound familiar??). It said this:

Suddenly, your desperation turns to a decision. It may be a deeper level of commitment or a yielding of an area of besetting sins or a response to an unanswered call or a vow of consecration in an area of your life. You are at a place, spiritually, you would have never reached if God hadn't closed the shut off valve of your blessings and caused your desire to turn into dependence, your dependence into desperation, and finally, your desperation to a time of decision. At this point, the child, the job, the finances, or the marriage are no longer the issue. The will of God is the issue. Now you don't even want the child, unless God does. You don't even want the job, unless God does. He may miraculously give you what you desired, or better still, just give you more of Himself instead. The key is that now He has your undivided attention, and is in the process of changing your life by withholding from your life blessings that you took for granted. So why God withholds from us becomes obvious. It is to get our attention.

Wow!!

...and I will end with that.