God’s Gifts Often Come Wrapped in Surprising Ways

I recently listened to a speech given by Anne Graham Lotz at the Pray, Vote, Stand conference. In her introduction, she shared about a gift her mother had given her wrapped in brown wrapping paper. Inside was a colorful bucket filled with tissue paper. After examining it, she called her mother to thank her for her cleverness of the tissue paper and multi-colored bucket. Much to Anne’s surprise her mother asked her if she had found the gift. Surprisingly, Anne responded no, she had not. She had overlooked the gift of a gold, lapis lazuli ring. This priceless gift had been on display in a British museum and was fashioned from the palace where Queen Esther had once lived. Suddenly, Anne realized she had thrown away a priceless treasure because she had not liked the way it was wrapped.

As moms, we are like that. God brings ‘gifts’ into our lives wrapped differently than expected only to see that in time, He uses those ‘gifts’ to conform us to the image of His son and to bring about our
sanctification. In the Bible, we do not read the words verbatim, “die to self,” however the idea is present throughout various passages in Scripture.

Are there days when you feel as though your life is a seed that has been planted in the ground, never to see the light of day again? Do you feel as though your selfless, sacrificial motherhood-life is more
demanding than what you expected? If so, you are not alone. Every day you, figuratively speaking, lay down your life for your children. I recall a friend saying, “Serving others is when we are most like Christ.”

So, this is one of God’s gifts to mamas – sacrificial servanthood. It is the tool that God lovingly uses for our sanctification. As you embrace the emotional difficulties, the lack of sleep, and the never-ending demands, is it bringing you to a place where you see your inability to live the Christian life apart from Christ? Dear one, do not fear of losing your life. It is through its loss and “death of the old self” that new life comes forth (John 12:24).

This is the testimony of my walk with Jesus: Motherhood brought about desperation. It was at this time that Galatians 2:20 became the cry of my heart. Scripture states, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” I needed to learn to appropriate what had already happened on the cross as stated in Galatians 2:20 and trust the Holy Spirit to work in and through me. I was saved, but up to that point I was working extremely hard and trusting in myself. As I learned to depend on God and pray that He would teach me each day how-to walk-in obedience to Him, God began a work in me that only He could do through the graciousness of the Holy Spirit. Rather than struggling and failing, I learned to rest and receive from Jesus His provision for each day’s trials. I learned to receive God’s good gifts wrapped differently than I had expected, and in receiving those gifts, they led me to a deeper relationship with Jesus.