Held Together with God's Grace

Brothers and sisters, who are loved by God,

Everything I am is held together by God's grace and it was given so I could be a blessing to others. This is a truth for all of us.

A few months after hearing Dad's cancer came back (August 2010), I talked to a friend of mine who was going through the same season with her father. We ministered to each other during a time of great need and the night after she told our small group, I started to draw...and did so until about a year later, shortly after Dad had passed. I don't draw anymore, not like that one year. Even now, if I try to start a drawing, it feels awkward and I don't have anything to "say" through my work. I know that it was by God's grace that I was given an opportunity to draw when words failed me, my heart could barely cope and my mind couldn't rest in such dark places without feeling it would all BREAK if I let it linger too long. Through my drawings, I was able to minister to others when I had nothing else to give. That would not have been the case had  I not shared them. It would have been all too easy to hide them away for fear of ridicule or rejection but they were meant to go to work, as a therapy for me and an opportunity of reflection for others.

God doesn't give us our resources, gifts and talents to bury them (Matthew 25: 14-30) but for them to multiply and release God's blessings exponentially!

Too often we hold onto things so tightly out of fear: fear of rejection, exploitation etc but that has never been the point of having something to give. The world tells us to hoard, to collect, to store away but WITH WISDOM AND DISCERNMENT we should be looking at opportunities of giving (and this includes time, gifts, talents and resources), not as a loss but as an opportunity to GROW the blessing, like a kingdom investment. There is ALWAYS a return and JOY is interest paid BACK to us, each time.