Are you accepting your gifts?

God is always giving us things and presenting us with opportunities but due to our lack of faith and our tendency to trust our own intuition rather than trusting Him, we miss out on so many things. We push away things that could potentially be amazing because the package it was delivered in wasn't what we were expecting. 

Now let's say we understand how God operates and have accepted the fact that gifts come in all different forms and we say, "Hey, I trust God and He's giving me a gift, so let me just take it." Well we take the gift but then what do we do with it? They way you handle a gift from God is what is most important. God doesn't just give us gifts because He has nothing better to do. The gifts and opportunities God affords us have a valuable lesson. We must start realizing that every single thing we go through, whether good or bad, is a gift from God and we must use it. We must take something away from it. 

According to 1 Corinthians 13:13, the greatest gift out of faith, hope, and love is love. For the past few days I've had to face something that I have never had before, being alone with my thoughts. I went almost half way across the country to a place I've never been, and for the first time I am physically alone. No, I don't do everything with somebody else, but when I start to feel any type of emotion that I don't like, there is usually somebody around that I can go talk to in order to distract myself from myself. But now I can't do that anymore. I am finally coming face to face with myself and having to deal with everything I've ever pushed aside and ignored. It's not easy. I have finally figured out the root of all of the emotions that I ever have. I, for as long as I can remember, have not been accepting God's greatest gift. The gift of love. I have always wondered why I always feel like I'm missing something and why something is wrong. I've never been good at receiving love, but it wasn't until now that I fully understood that I wasn't. I wasn't opening my mind to accepting that love is more than hearing "I love you"(something my boyfriend would always tell me but I couldn't grasp this concept because I was ignorant to what love really is). I don't like for people to help me, to do things for me, or to worry about me when sometimes that may be their way of loving me. I realize that whenever people try to love me, I shut down. I get upset and get uncomfortable. If people give me an expensive gift, it makes me feel really bad  to accept it. That's me rejecting somebody else's love. Allowing yourself to be loved is allowing yourself to be vulnerable in the biggest possible way. You allow someone to come into your being and make a home there. 1 Corinthians 13 talks about how you can have all the faith and hope in the world, but if you don't have love, you are nothing. This downfall is the root of all my insecurities. The only person I know how to let love me, is myself. I know that I won't hurt or betray me, I know I won't let myself down. This mindset has ultimately held me back. It has made it hard for me to trust. God has given me the gift of love so now it's time for me to fully accept it. It's always been there but now I just have to use it. Thank you God for giving me love.