She Speaks 2009: Stealing Blessings

Hi, my name is Lisa and I have a problem. I steal blessings. I don’t mean to, really I don’t. I just don’t know how to receive them. I love to give them. I love to do things to bless other people. I just don’t receive them from others very well.

Especially Heather and I are a lot alike. By the end of the weekend we were finishing each other’s sentences. She would stop in mid-sentence sometimes or forget what she was about to say — then she’d just grin and say “chemo brain.” When I would do the exact.same.thing I asked her if I could claim “sympathy chemo brain.” She was gracious and said she would give that to me

We have a lot in common too — especially when it comes to not knowing how to receive blessings sometimes. For her (and I hope she doesn’t mind me saying this) it’s greatly due to she doesn’t want to be anyone’s charity case. I honestly don’t know what my excuse is — I just know it’s a problem.

I want to give to others. I want to be a blessing. I want to help others. Sometimes I want to give so much that I feel guilty receiving anything in return. Totally putting my soul out here, I’m going to share that I have money issues. When I do work for people (helping them fix their blogs or what not), I love it. It’s something I do well and it relieves a lot of frustration for others. But when it comes to someone wanting to pay me for that help? I freeze. What do you charge? Um, if you don’t ask me that — if you don’t make me feel uncomfortable talking about money — then I’d just do it for free.

I know Duck’s gonna read that last line and cringe. One thing I realized in the Prayer Room Sunday is that I don’t see the value in the gifts God’s given me and I feel really weird getting paid for that. Charlotte told me (paraphrasing here because it was all done through my tears) essentially I’m stealing other people’s blessings. Other people want to pay me for my work because God’s blessed them with the funds to do so. They want to invest in their ministry, and one way they can do that is to pay me for my work. It blesses them. It would bless me, and then in turn I can use that money to bless someone else.

I know it shouldn’t all be about the money. That’s not where the focus should be — it should be on God. I’m so very thankful that Especially Heather accepted my blessing in traveling to this conference. She blessed the socks off me — I know that. Just the conversations we had, the bond we now share, it’s just awesome.

Blessings: Pay it forward

The conference was ending up. We were gathering to say our last in-person goodbyes (we all are bloggers/tweeters after all!). I asked Laura Lee, Lisa Williams and Amy Bayliss when their flights were leaving. I was seriously trying to convince them to go to lunch with us. Lisa resisted saying she felt God leading her to get to the airport early. I can’t wait to hear what God did for her or through her at the airport! But I guilted Laura Lee into going with us. She was worried about missing the shuttle to the airport, and I assured her we had plenty of time — and that I having a car, would get her to the airport if we missed the shuttle.

We went up front to leave Laura Lee’s and Amy’s luggage with the concierge at the hotel and went off to lunch. Laura Lee paid me the biggest, nicest comment. She said “next to you I feel at peace.” She was funny because she stepped away from me and said “over here, chaos. Over here, peace.” It blessed my heart ya’ll. Evidently I blessed her heart too. Pretty awesome how that works, right?

Amy rode over to the restaurant in Dawn’s car and then Mari, Heather, Laura Lee and I in mine. I confessed to Heather on the way over that I felt like I needed to talk to Amy — she’s doing what I want to do, and I felt I could help her. I had passed by and talked to Amy here and there all weekend, but I didn’t have the courage to tell her I wanted to help her or work with her or whatever God had in mind. Heather had been working on me all weekend telling me that I need to Be Bold. I need to have confidence in myself. She said that I tend to hang back and that’s not always good. She insisted I tell Amy at lunch or she was going to do it for me.

We all sit down for lunch. Everyone’s talking, laughing, joking. Amy’s sitting at the other end of the table about as far as she can get from me — there were only 6 of us Then I blurted it out. Something to the effect of “Amy, I feel like I need to tell you I want to work with you. I have no idea doing what, but I just know I’m supposed to tell you that.” Her eyes got huge and what she said, brought on the Holy Spirit chills. She said she had been praying all weekend for God to send her an assistant because she was so overwhelmed.

Ya’ll, if I didn’t speak up, God couldn’t have used me to bless someone else. He wanted to use me to answer someone else’s prayer and because I was feeling insecure about myself, my skills — I was about to let the weekend slip away without saying anything.

Laura Lee wasn’t sure about coming to lunch, but I got her to the airport on time — not early but she made her flight, and she got the opportunity to buy Heather’s lunch which let her bless Heather. All weekend it was just a series of blessings — women of God loving on each other, building each other up, and I hope that carries over.

When we don’t let people do things for us or give us things, we’re stealing blessings — not only from them but from God too. God wants to send us blessings. He wants to give us gifts. We need to learn to say “thank you” and then turn around being open to what God wants us to do to bless others.

Even though I have money issues and I didn’t want to take any money for gas or driving the ladies to the airport, someone stuck $20 in my purse. Thank you

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