Given and Taken

Given and Taken 

August 6, 2005 (Zach's 20th Birthday)

"You give and take away, you give and take away
My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name"

This is what I am determined to live my life by in the 20th year:
Everything I have, God has given to me, and everything that I have lost, God has taken from me - all according to His will, and I will thank him for both.

Every opportunity I have, every person in my life, every skill or talent, every longing I have is from God. God has given me the chance to live and work in Italy for 2 years. He's given me the chance to see and do things that most people will never be able to see or do in their life, they only dream about them and see them in movies. Wheter I like it or not, I have to deal with people every day, there's no escaping it. Some of them are easier to deal with than others. I thank God for the friends and other strong Christians that he's brought into my life, I thank him for the chance to witness to those that are lost, and there are many of them. I ask God for wisdom and tactfulness in dealing with the people in my life that I may not exactly enjoy being around. But God has given them to me, He has put them in my life, and that in itself is enough for me to see that there is a reason. There may not be many things that I am exceptionally tallented in, but nonetheless I still love to do. God has given me the ability to do these things, and I will use them to give back to Him what I can.

But I will not only rejoice in the things that God has given from me, I will also praise Him for the things that He has taken. He's taken me from my home, He's taken relationships from me. Some of my freedoms He's taken away by putting me in the Air Force.
It seems to me, however, that God does not take away without giving something back.
He took me from my home - but gave me the chance to see the world.

And some things He gave to me for a time, but never intended it to last on this world. Please, God, help me to accept that. Some things were only meant to last for a season, and that's the end of it.