Not my own

The truth that we do not belong to ourselves is one I'm ready to return to.   It's time to work on accepting kindness graciously and for admitting I am anything but an inexhaustible resource.  It is strange how love is distributed.  Where you expected great help, there is nothing.  Where you expected little there is much.    Where you expected nothing, the greatest surprises unfold.  It is like manna.  You can't make it come, but somehow it always shows up.  There's always a bite for today.

Some days I am the biter and some days I am the bitten.  But I am not my own and never was.  I think I see this all most clearly when I look at my children.  They have the right to ask for everything from me, but I don't have everything to give them.  I can only give them what I've got, and trust that God will make it sufficient.  I think that's better than pretending to be a paragon of strength or virtue.  Truth is always better than lies, and it points them toward the right place to get everything.

I've been overlooking Jesus in my life.  At one point I felt as if I'd been completely alone my whole life and I told God I wanted him to put on human arms and to minister to me that way.  How is it that Jesus with his human arms didn't come to mind? My life is hidden with Christ in God, and that's exactly where it ought to be.