Blessing and Being Blessed

Our ten year old daughter and I were driving to her sports practice the other day when she asked me, "why are people nice to us like that?" It was a very interesting and honest question. Why?

The previous day had brought two separate visitors to our home. The first was a dear friend and two of her wonderful children. They are precious just to spend time with, but that day they blessed our family not only with their presence, but also with a great lunch, some much needed supplies and helping hands on some of our projects. We were truly blessed! The second was a friend from our congregation that dropped their camper at our home for us to use this coming week on a family vacation. We try to enjoy this specific event each year and we typically sleep in tents. This would have been the first time tenting with all five children, but we were excited. Several weeks ago, we were sharing summer plans with this friend and they were surprised that we would consider tenting and didn't hesitate to say, "why don't you just use our camper?" Another amazing blessing!

Our daughter was genuinely asking why blessings like the ones we had received the day before seem to happen to our family all the time. I thought about it for a moment, and I believe the Holy Spirit led me to give her this answer: "Because that is how God is choosing to provide for and bless our family. He could have chosen to give your father a job that pays him tons of money. With a job like that, we could simply buy whatever we want and bless many others. Instead, God is blessing us through others. By doing that, God is also allowing their faith to grow." I got the "what?" look when I said the last statement. So I continued, "think about when we do something nice for someone else. When we make cakes for the firemen or collect hats and gloves for the needy, instead of birthday presents. Doesn't it make you feel great to be able to give these things to others?" She agreed with me. "Well, when we allow others to bless us, they get the same great feeling and know that they have had a part in God's amazing plan to provide for our family." She responded with a simple, "Oh."

To be completely honest, I had never thought of it that way before. There have been many times over the past 19 years when I have thought, "why isn't my husband paid more for what he does?" "Why doesn't God allow our finances to look differently than they do?" It is not that we haven't tried, at one point we were working five jobs between the two of us. We aim to live debt free, buy used, save hand me downs, and sell extra items on websites. But, what I learned many years ago is that God always gives us what we NEED, it might not be enough for what we WANT, nor may it come in a means we expect, but He has never failed us.

I hope you don't feel like I am boasting as I write this, that is really not my intent. It is very humbling to have people bless you by giving you things. I truly would much rather be able to tell my children that I would be happy to purchase them "xyz" with our own money. However, God has a bigger plan. The picture God sees is one of us blessing each other, blessing and being blessed.

Once there was someone who wanted to give us a fairly large gift. I asked, "why would you want to do that?" They looked at me with a slightly hurt look and said, "because we love you and it makes us happy to help you." I have seen that just as God is working on my heart (decreasing my pride, increasing my ability to be content), He is also working on the hearts of others. I am not suggesting that you sit on the temple steps and beg, just trying to encourage you to open yourself to God's greater plan of blessing and being blessed.