Showers of Spring Flowers

Wonderful, pink flowers bloom, and drop to our garden bed just outside our door each and every spring. They are lovely, and then, they pile up and become work.

So much of my life feels like those pink blossoms.

We have been so richly blessed, and those blessings drop abundantly, and then pile up and we realize slowly that we are responsible for them.

God blesses us so that we can bless others.

When we are blessed, we find ourselves wholly immersed in the sights, sounds, and scents of life. If we don't pass the blessings on, or share them with others, they pile up and become . . . work. Strange as that may sound, I think it's true.

We have piles of paper in four rooms. Sure, some of them are important papers that need to be filed and shelved. Some are stories and poems that need to be shared. Some are pictures and writings by my daughters which need to be posted. Did you know that the refrigerator is really too small to put everything on? We have artwork, cards, certificates, and writing posted on cupboard doors, closet doors, walls, and windows. Still, there is a pile of them to post, sort, mail and share.

Then there is the laundry. We have been blessed by hand me downs, second hand store buys, and sale bargains, coupons for 40% off, and it's all waiting for us to wash, dry, and (shudder) fold. When we grow out of things, it takes us a long time to admit it, put it into bags and take it to the Goodwill or the food bank . . . but eventually it happens.

I am thankful to the Lord for blessing us so abundantly, and for giving me the honor of caring for my husband and daughters. However, some days, when I've allowed my blessings to pile up next to me, like the pile of wrinkled clothes that must be ironed before my husband goes to work . . . I am hard pressed to see the blessing.

Even some days, when I have 3,774 words written for a story that I plan on ending around 5,000 words, I lose my excitement and see. . . the trouble with my plot-line . . . it's just too long, or too long-winded.

I know I'm going to have to revise . . . at least once. And yet, being able to revise is a blessing. Thank you Lord, for giving me a second chance, and sometimes a third, and fourth, to find the right words to write!

So, how can I use my piles of underused blessings to bless others?
I can actually sort those papers, submit my work, post my daughters' creative work, iron my husband's clothes so he can be the best supervising engineer he can be (sharing my husband's amazing skills with others), and finish that rough draft, so I can revise it, and submit it, and hope that it will make a difference in someone's life, and not just become another dust collector in mine.

How about you? How are you using your abundant blessings to bless others this spring?
Or have you let the beautifully scented blossoms of blessing pile up like I have lately?