Gifts from God

This morning my devotional was on the subject of gifts and discerning the gifts that God has given you. Excerpt from the Purpose Driven daily devo...The Bible says, "Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do." (Ephesians 5:17 NLT) Don't let another day go by. Start finding out and clarifying what God intends for you to be and do.
Begin by assessing your gifts and abilities. Take a long, honest look at what you are good at and what you're not good at. Paul advised, "Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves ...." (Romans 12:3b NLT)

That is some food for thought for a Monday morning when the Hubby is out of town, and the night was filled with a fevered sick child.
My evalutation of myself is usually not really too positive. I have some pretty cool gifts, but I am sometimes covetous of the gifts of others, like the gift of scheduling (I have never been able to schedule my babies sleeping or feeding). I have nursed them all to sleep and tried (most of the time unsucessfully) to slip and lay them down. Don't get me wrong though I loved it and I miss it and more than likely I will do the same thing again, hopefully. But I am evious of my friends with impeccable houses and routines.
I have a difficult time scheduling myself. For example, while I am typing away, I have this window from 9 to 1 for the laundry. My plan was to sit down and make a list of housecleaning chores, but I am blogging. Hello, ADD.
I think one of the gifts God gave me is seeing potential. I see such awesome potential in my children. I see their gifts very plainly. My Sam has the gift of leadership , John has the gift of strenghth, and Jack has the gift of joy. They have other gifts as well but these were most evident to me this morning. They are so precious to me and so funny.
My gift of seeing potential extends to different areas. I see the potential in lots of junk, especially my two biggies-furniture and fabric. I see furniture everywhere, the roadside, thrift stores, that I just know that I could transform into something fabulous. I look at magazines and websites and think well there's that chair I saw at Goodwill covered in burlap and linen. I can do that. The other potential biggie is fabric. Now, I don't just buy whatever catches my eye, it has to be

a deal

too. I just think of the endless assortment of projects that could be completed with fabric, pillows, tablecloths, chair pads, curtains, and on and on... This gift of seeing potential in junk gets me in t-r-o-u-b-l-e. See, my husband does not share this gift, to him my treasures are just junk. It can also cause something to rise up in me that is not a gift ,far from it actually, and that is discontentment. So I am trying to focus my unusual eyesite on just my kids that way we can all be happy. Nevertheless, I have some junk in the garage that is dying for a little TLC.