Grass is Greener on the other side

The other day my 11 year old, Genesis, said, "Mom, if we had nice green grass in our yard I would play outside more".



If you know Genesis you know that she is not like her tomboy mother was at her age.
I loved to be outside playing with my older brother, making guns out of sticks, building forts, and cooking up some yummy mud pies.

Genesis, not so much. She is all girl.

The truth is. No matter how lush our grass is, she still would not choose to go outside. It's just not her thing.

I had that "grass is greener on the other side" thinking all the time. And still do sometimes if I'm not careful.

I would walk into someone else's clean home and think, "If I had a house like this then I could have a better family".

Why is it that when someone else does the work, it seems SO much better.

Someone else can make me a sandwich the exact same way I would, and yet it taste far better since they made it. Why is that???

I digress

I would think things like, "If I had her looks I would be more out going, if I had that talent I could do more for God, if I had more money I would help others...."

Last year one of the things God taught me is Don't Wait for the If

I grew up in church and learned that it is better to give than receive.

But when it came to finances I would always say that all I wanted was to make enough money to provide for my family comfortably and have some left over so I could then bless others.

The problem is defining comfortable. But that's a whole other blog for another day.

God finally got ahold of my heart and changed my thinking. I stopped longing for the neighbors house. The nice cars, the great paying job, dressing my kids in the cutest clothes. And even stopped waiting for "enough".

The moment I decided that we actually had more than enough, and decided to start giving now, my life has changed.

Now I am not into prosperity teaching. I don't believe that we give to receive.
But God is so awesome that He does bless us.

No, we didn't all the sudden receive a nice car or get a six digit salary.

We are blessed with contentment.

Blessed with a wonderful family.

Blessed to be adding two amazing little boys to our family.

Blessed to really start to Know God.

Blessed to be happy living on our side of the fence.

The grass may not be greener, but the mud pies are incredible.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

There once was a rich man who was near death. He was very grieved because he had worked so hard for his money and he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth with him.

An angel hears his plea and appears to him. "Sorry, but you can't
take your wealth with you." The man implores the angel to speak to God to see if He might bend the rules.

The man continues to pray that his wealth could follow him. The angel reappears and informs the man that God has decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man gathers his largest suitcase and fills it with pure gold bars and places it beside his bed.

Soon afterward the man dies and shows up at the Gates of Heaven to
greet St.Peter. St.Peter seeing the suitcase says, "Hold on, you
can't bring that in here!"

But, the man explains to St.Peter that he has permission and asks him to verify his story with the Lord. Sure enough, St.Peter checks and comes back saying, "You're right. You are allowed one carry-on bag, but I'm supposed to check its contents before letting it through."

St. Peter opens the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaims,

"You brought pavement?!!!"