Everything You Took From Me, Words of my heart, by A Texas Artist Laurie Pace

Everything You Took From Me

I was reading the newest issue of AARP (they start sending it to you when you turn fifty) and was deep into the article on Sharon Stone.

I shoved the magazine in front of Terry and he said,
"Wow she looks better today than back then."

"everything you took from me..."

How did she get there?

"everything you took from me..."

It is an incredible article that covers a journey in her personal life.  A prayer shared with her by a close friend kept her sane and kept her focused on Him.

"Thank you, God, for everything you gave me, and thank you more for everything you took." 

It was just yesterday afternoon I was on the phone with a fellow artist facing many worldly changes in her life. Her foundation is with Him, but she was questioning why change was so abrupt and so far reaching at times that it reduces everything in your world.   "Thank you more for everything you took."

In church yesterday, Jack chose for the offertory, Luke 6:38:"Give away your life; you;ll find life given back but not merely given back, given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting is the way. Generosity begets generosity."


It's that baseball bat theory... if you are not listening and focused, sometimes that baseball bat thumbs you hard across the head and sets you spinning. Spinning back to Him.  Can you give away your life? Can you give away how you live your life? Can you trust Him enough to step out of your comfort zone and give it all up and start again?  "Thank you more for everything you took."

Can you forgive things that have set your life on a course filled with doubt and anger? Can you give away that life? Can you accept what you deem as failure as a learning tool and fall to your knees and ask Him to pick you back up?  Your bonus will be joy. Your blessings will be your gifts, and those you must be ready to share with those that have a need you can fill. "Thank you more for everything you took."

My recent vision has been more like a lump of wet clay.  When you feel 'deformed' and unable to find your way or your identity or when things are just not working right, you have to give up where you are right now. God will work with you. The clay is wet down and reworked and reformed into something different; something useful; something that has the ability to serve and give to others. Giving not getting. Generosity begets generosity. God will do the same with you.

"Thank you God, for everything you gave me, and thank you more for everything you took."  When I lost those things that I thought meant so much to me, I felt lost and desolate with their absence.

You begin to give back and fill me with new things, new gifts and new opportunities.  I would have never let go of those things, but you knew... you knew I could not move forward with all of it around me, pulling me down.  Those things were holding me back.   I am made new only in You.

Words of my heart,
Laurie

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” 1 John 4:9NIV