Blessings

Birdie wrote this to me in an e-mail the other day and I just can not help but share it with all of you.

"My thoughts have been wandering around today (no surprise there), and keep circling back to the same subject. I've been pondering God's blessings and how the very greatest blessings he gives us often come wrapped in challenges disguised as problems and just dare us not to accept them. I have been thinking about how pregnancy and childbirth are such a good example of this. Even a planned pregnancy brings with it many a challenge. An unplanned one tempts us to reject it, to throw it back in the face of the One who gave it. What a shame. God's gifts are always good. They are always perfect. They are always just what we need to bless our hearts, and to smooth out some of our rough edges. However, no matter how wonderful God's other gifts like health and prosperity may be, they do not carry the eternal consequences of the gift of a new life, a new person. Children are the only gifts that bear the mark of the Creator. No wonder the same world that rejected Him tries to reject these little ones who are made in His image! Everyone will die someday. No wealthy person has yet figured out a way to carry their riches into eternity. Health and prosperity will fade away, but an immortal soul will pass on into eternity whether into the presence of God or into everlasting torment. I guess that I'm preaching to the choir here, but it has been cycling through my mind today. The challenge is always upon us. What will we do with this one life we are given? How will we stand for God, for the Truth in this age of darkness? Will we take a stand for Christ, or will we cave in to the pressures of the world?

I have also been thinking that, so often, the world rejects a child, God's blessing because the parents are too poor to afford another... because the timing just isn't right... because of social reasons and the embarrassment or hardship it would cause... What a shame. I'm thinking that I'm glad that Mary didn't bow to the social pressure for her baby was surely ill-timed, not planned, and of great social embarrassment by the world's standards. Surely, she couldn't afford a pregnancy then either. She was poor, she was single, and she was facing tremendous embarrassment."