Blessed to be a Blessing

Life.

Never simple, never perfect, never crystal-clear. We never have everything we want, we never have all the people we love within hugging distance, we never have all the money we think we need.

And yet, through it all, there's God. God. My miraculous, loving, omnipresent Father, never leaves me, never deserts me, never walks away.

My God offers me tough times, times to fully rely on Him, times where I have no other choice but to lift my hands up to the stars and say "God, this has to be You, because there's no physical way I'll be able to do it on my own."

"Blessed to be a blessing." What a great theme for a school year! Here at Concordia, the focus, at least for the first three days, has been that quote. We've heard some wonderful speakers, one on her own mission trips this summer, one on how "genius" simply means helper, and that we can all be geniuses. But they all tie in: How blessed we are to be blessings.

That turned my thoughts to Russia immediately during the first two days of chapel. How blessed I was to be a blessing to the children and the patients who I reached out to! But tonight, I was reminded of my own belief in witnessing where you are, where God has put you.

So many people who I know and love have come to trust me with their issues, their ups and downs in life. How blessed I am, to be approached and trusted by friends who are struggling. As I prayed with a friend tonight, we finished up and did what any two confused and wandering girls would do: held each other and cried. Not necessarily totally out of sorrow, but maybe because when all the emotions in the world get mixed together, tears are the result.

When we had finished, she said "I'm sure that God has sent you tonight to help me." What a powerful, wonderful, and totally moving statement. That's when I remembered, "blessed to be a blessing." I am blown away by the number of times God uses me, as I said earlier in my Russia journals, to reach out, to be the hand at the end of His arm. All the glory to God! I praise Him and thank Him for the wonderful friends I have, not only to reach out to and to pray with, but who I know, in a heartbeat, would do the exact same things for me, when I need them.

God the Father has truly blessed me, continues to bless me, on a daily basis. I can not express, in words, how amazed I am at His constant love, His never-ending mercy, His compassion that extends further than I can ever understand. I look forward to the day when I can sing about His grace and love and wondrous might forever in heaven.

Blessings on all that you do!
(And may you be "blessed to be a blessing.")