Thoughts and Blessings

"...the Lord may temporarily withhold blessings from us so He can give us blessings and experiences that could come no other way." 

{I came across this quote from an Ensign article in May of 2009.}
 I just can't tell you how important this is to understand. 

• When I didn't get married until I was 26 (now of course for me, that felt like I might as well have been 50), I was frustrated with why that "blessing" of marriage was witheld from me, but let me tell you, it still came and I was incredibly blessed with experiences and blessings that could have come in no other way. 
• Before I got married I had amazing experiences in college, in hair school and in Utah, Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, D.C. and California. Oh and of course in Idaho.
• Now I am here in North Dakota, ready for the next phase of life and wondering similar things about blessings I desire now.... but I know... I know that the Lord will bless me, but I may not realize it at the moment it is happening and it may not be the blessing that I am praying for. He might just have something different for me in mind. 
• It took me 10 whole years of being single to then look back on those "single days" and realize all the amazing blessings and experiences I had.  It is true, if I was married earlier in life, I would not have had those amazing experiences and would not have met some of the most amazing people that I am privileged to now know.
• That being said...I look forward to the blessings that the Lord is pouring down right this very moment and I hope and pray that I am aware of those blessings and not just letting them go by the wayside while I look for specific blessings that I want. 

What I learned....

• Don't be greedy with the blessings, be grateful the Lord is blessing you now and find a way to figure out what blessing you are recieving right this very moment.

I have never felt more strongly about this then I do right now.

Blessings I KNOW I have received recently

• I am so thankful for the opportunites we are being blessed with here in North Dakota, especially for good ND state benefits.
• I am so thankful for a husband who is SO incredibly amazing and wonderful to me and so grateful that I finally found him!
• I am so grateful for a sweet, hyper, wild, goofy, cute and loving ten year old step-daughter.
• And I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have of a loving Heavenly Father who really does desire my happiness!  I know it and I feel it. 

 I love tears of joy, not to be confused with all the other tears a woman expresses in her life time.  Trust me, ask my husband, he has a hard time figuring out all my different "tears".

Just so grateful to have what I have and glad it didn't happen any other way.

On that note...check out this song. Pretty much fell in love with this song.

It's kind of about being grateful things happened the way they did...of course i'm sure this is how my hubby feels about me too..