Measure of Faith

What measure of faith have you been given?

"For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith."
Romans 12:3-6

I was in church yesterday and the message my Pastor gave us was interesting. He spoke about how God is preparing us to come into contact with someone either to speak to them or have them speak to us. To teach or to be taught. I never thought of it that way but have had several instances in my life where this has been true. I wonder what God is preparing me for right now.

Also, I was thinking that this experience of Allison being stillborn has in some ways been easier to deal with that my first two pregnancy losses. The reason being that with those no one acknowledged them. Now we are getting cards and stuff so I feel like people knew she was actually a baby that we lost. I am still sorrowful, but it helps that people realize it.

Secondly, I have a face and a name to put with this loss of our baby. The others were too early, too young to have names and faces and therefore it was hard to grieve those losses. I am thankful that we had Ally for as long as we did, and got to see her sweet little face and hands and feet, and to hold her for a short period of time before we had to say goodbye.

I have been thinking about the saying that the more faith you have the more will be expected of you. I thought that perhaps it was true, or maybe hard times beget more faith? I'm not sure. My grandmother had a brother die in WWII, a baby die around 20 weeks, her husband die (when she was 30 with 4 kids under 7 at home), and another adult child die. Along with her grandparents, and parents when they were fairly young. That woman seems to be made of steel. Perhaps the most faithful woman I have ever met. And prayerful. Not without flaws of course but she has somehow made it through all these things relatively unscathed. Or seemingly so.

And I also think of Job (bible). Poor guy. But same story there. More faith, more trials.

I am not lumping myself together with these people though. I just look to them when I start thinking about how unfair life is and start feeling sorry for myself. Tony is also a "buck up" kind of guy. He doesn't like it when I get all sorry for myself and usually tells me how lucky I am to have such a great family, and shouldn't I focus on that instead? The answer is yes, I should. Do I always? No.

I have so much more to say but things around the house desperately need to get done and I have to do them.