Giving and Receiving - My (Coffee) Cup Overfloweth

Remember this post from last year about letting go of the things we're afraid to let go of, the things we're hoarding?  About trusting that God will provide what we need when we need it?

If you have a minute, re-read that post.  Because the plot has thickened.

In that post I said "More space means more love and blessings and light can enter in."  Well, hello love and blessings and light!  Welcome.


It's been seven months since I stashed my beloved stack of random store credit and gift cards in a Curious George card and mailed them off to Glennon at Momastery with a slightly hesitant farewell.  It felt good to let them go.  I knew it was what I needed to do - 100%.  And it feels good to do what you know you need to do.

Yesterday, I saw a card sitting out on the counter that Micah had brought in from the mail.  My name was written in messy shorthand on the envelope.  The return address started with GMelt.  I knew instantly who it was from.  It was from my now-pretty-much-famous BFF who I've never met, Glennon.

The seal on the envelope had come undone, but the contents were still inside.  When I opened the card, out fell a stack of gift cards.  For a split second, I thought somehow they had been returned to me by the mail system - then I remembered that this envelope and card were addressed to me.

The note said this:

Sweetie, 

Something told me to hold on to these for awhile and then send them back to you.  Thank you for letting them go.

Love,
Glennon

I cried reading this out loud to Micah.  I didn't know what I was crying about exactly.

These are the things that I did know:
- Most of my cards were there in that stack, minus a few that had found new homes.

- There was a Christmas Starbucks card there that I hadn't sent to her.  An extra bonus.  I love Starbucks and I love extra bonuses.

- Glennon's blog went viral several months ago, and ever since then she has been pretty much a celebrity.  She's signed on with a big-time publisher, is writing a book, still writing the blog, and battling chronic Lyme's disease.  So

a) I just got mail from a celebrity.  I told Micah "You're not seeming to grasp the hugeness of this!  This is like my BFF Jen Aniston sending me a card!"

And

b) This woman who, God love her, is all over the place ANYWAY (probably now even more with her suddenly crazier life), somehow was still open enough to the Spirit to sense that she was supposed to hold on to these cards (which doesn't surprise me - she's a master at being open to the Spirit) and didn't lose them and remembered to send them to me 7 months later!!!  This is a woman who can't even remember what car she owns!  Her desk is probably piled a mile high with crap.  Seriously.  And somehow these cards didn't get lost in the clutter.  This makes me feel even more loved because I know that it's a total miracle that those cards found their way back to me.

I kept reading Glennon's card over and over again.  This is SO not what I expected. I did not expect God to tell her to send these cards back to me.  I thought the whole idea was to let them go, which in my mind meant that I'd never see them again.  But I guess the part that matters is the letting go, not the end result.

Throughout the day, this crazy turn of events kept sinking in more and more.  I thought while digging in the garden about how my biggest hangup with giving things away or letting go in general is that I'm afraid I'll need it later and God won't provide.  I'm afraid God won't take care of me.

And the Father knows this.  So he asked me to let something go.  I heard him, and I let go.  And then, when the time was right, he sent about $200 worth of cards back to me, with a Starbucks card that said to me, "I see you.  I know you.  I know not only your needs but also the things that you just plain like.  I love you.  I want to give to you abundantly just as you want to give abundantly to your own children.  Even more so.  I've got this.  Keep letting go.  I have ever so much more for you."

When we hold on to things and protect ourselves as if it's really up to us to keep things going, we cut ourselves off from the ability to receive the blessings and fullness that are meant to be ours.

I wonder if it will ever stop amazing and surprising me how creative God is.  I sure hope not.

Here's the thing, though.  A lot of times we have to change our perspective in order to see the hugeness of the blessing.  It's not usually as clear as "Hey, you gave these cards away, now I'm going to give most of them back to you with an extra Starbucks bonus on top."  I think usually the abundance we receive looks very different than we would expect.  But if we're open to it, we will eventually see that it's absolutely, perfectly, more than we ever could have hoped for.  As I mulled all of this over, I thought of a photo from one of Glennon's recent posts, called "You Might Want to Turn Your Head".  Perspective.  Sometimes it takes a shift in perspective to really see what's going on.

I wonder how many other things in life I'm holding on to that God is asking me to let go of.  Stuff, relationships, wounds and baggage, expectations, reputations, safety nets.  I wonder what love and blessings and light he has for me, just waiting to be mine once I let go of the other stuff, make more space so that he can give me more than I ever could have hoped for or imagined.

I'll keep wondering about all of this while I sip my Decaf Tall Soy Misto.  <contented sigh>