The Gift...God's Gift

I started this blog in 2010 excited about what God was doing in my life and how He was using the gift He entrusted me with. Then life happened. Since then, I have noticed a few "businesses", pop up with this same name. I'm not upset. Writefully Speaking is a name that God gave me after fasting and praying...it's ministry for me. Why? It was just 7 years ago that I was told that I would never speak again. This is when I realized the gift that I really had. I've never been a "speaker" per se, because every attempt at me speaking either has been shut down by someone talking over me, cutting me off or plain telling me to shut up (saying "be quiet" would have been MUCH nicer). I use to write letters to family members, friends and boyfriends whenever an issue arose because I couldn't "talk" about it. So, I'm not going to let the enemy take away what God has given me a clear vision for. Writefully Speaking will go about full force and will operate as the mandate God has set. In the meantime, I'll share this:

Using What’s Lost and Focusing on What’s Gained      
   
            As I’m sitting here recovering from surgery, God has really dealt with me on using what I thought I lost and focusing on what I’ve gained. It’s like a blind man that has lost his sight, but not his vision. It’s like a deaf woman losing her hearing, but can listen to God. It’s like me losing my voice, but having so much to say (as usual right?). It’s all about using what we thought we lost. The key word here is “thought”. Not using what IS lost, or what WAS lost, but what we THOUGHT we lost. There are times when relationships end in our lives and we feel like we’ve lost so much…we feel like we’ve lost love, hope and understanding. But seems like those things magnify themselves 10-fold in other areas of our lives when we really allow ourselves to sit back and reflect. Or in essence, we have actually gained more in turn from losing something. There are many of us that lost our jobs, but we have gained more quiet time with God. There are many of us that have lost loved ones, but we have gained an appreciation for true family time. There are many of us that have lost the relationship battle, but we’ve gained a deeper self-love. It’s not so easy to celebrate a loss when we’re in “mourning”. But “many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21 ).

            It’s hard for us to understand that God could have orchestrated a loss for us to gain so much more. Especially when we try to preserve what was lost. But He told me that some things aren’t worth preserving. We try to hold on to the person, when we really should be cherishing the love. We try to hold on to the relationship, when we really should be holding on to the experience. We try to hold on to the materialistic things we have gained, when we really need to hold on to the knowledge of God’s blessings. Let go and let God sounds easy, but it really isn’t. We try to recapture the feeling we had when a certain person or situation was present in our lives. Not realizing that we to let some things go in order to receive others. The Bible clearly tells us that in Isaiah 42:9a, “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare”. And also Isaiah 43:18, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” Though it’s in the Word, it’s still hard for us. As we open up our hearts and souls to God in prayer, let us not to forget to ask Him to help us move on from the former, using what was lost and focus on what we have gained.     

    
Your Humble Servant,
Raushanah N. Butler

 © Copyright 2005 by Raushanah N. Butler