The Problem With Complaining

Where do I start? I LOVE to complain, it's true and I'm not denying it. For some odd reason, I feel that silently (or not so silently) ruminating on my distresses will make me feel better about myself. Why do I need to feel better about myself, do you ask? Because I have been looking at myself through a microscope for so long that I have neglected to be the hands and feet of Christ that I have been called to be. This sounds so odd because I have two children under 2 and rarely have time to think about myself but what I am referring to is a deep-seeded habit that I think many of us have established and don't realize we are doing. I am referring to that incident or memory that we all have from our past that affected for better or worse our view of our faith. We have all attended the church that has treated us badly or encountered the "Christian" whose life is so obviously not bearing the fruit of a life surrendered to Christ that it is laughable. I'm sure not everyone allows these incidents to make them bitter, but many of us do, and I was no exception. It is one thing to learn from these experiences and move on, but to wake up 10 years later and realize I was still fighting the same battle was ridiculous. I finally just realized that I couldn't change what had happened in the past but I obviously wasn't growing from that experience anymore, so I needed to actively search for opportunities to allow God to begin a new journey for me. Having children has significantly accelerated this process because I didnt want them to learn their faith through my views of the past, but rather I wanted us as a family to begin learning new things together.
I give you this brief history just to say this: we all have things we need to work through, but when we spend so much time dwelling on those things instead of just surrendering them to Christ, we waste the time that we have been given to be an encouragement to others by looking at ourself under the "pity microscope" and we begin to stagnate. We need to realize the God doesn't bless us because we deserve it- He does it so that we can share what we have with others, and if we fail to do this (whether monetarily or with spiritual gifts) the excess which was meant to be a blessing to others will poison us when we keep it to ourselves.