Anyway you bless me...............

I don't have a good recollection of something being freely given.  I always waited for the other shoe to drop.  I have struggled with this for years.  When I was seven years old, my mother threw me a birthday party in the theme of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  At that party, I invited some of my  friends from school.  One such friend gave me a popular gift.  It was a purse with a doll inside of it.  I made the remark that I already had a purse that had a doll inside of it.  My mother rebuked me and made me accept the gift.  Much later in my life, I was forced to live a life of taking charity.  I was ashamed of my family for what we had been reduced to.  When I grew up and got my own job and could finally rely on my own income, I refused to take gifts of any kind.  If I could get it myself, I did.  I refused to be seen as a charity case and I hate having to take what was handed to me.  I continued to pray and ask God to fix my financial situation, but I wanted him to do it through my own hand.  I wanted him to help me settle myself into a new place in my life, but I wanted him to do it through my own hand.  God informed me that he does not work like that.  He does things through gifts.  He may place the gift in the hand of anyone he pleases.  You make no demands on a gift because it is a gift.  You don't tell the giver how you want to be blessed.  You ask for a blessing and anyway he does is, you just go somewhere and be satisfied.  In this, I realize, that I now have a different type of lack.  It is a self-imposed lack that comes about because of pride.  I only want to be blessed by certain means.  I repent of that.  However and whomever you choose, I freely receive.