I am gifted affirmation by Anna Szabo

Did you know that you have divine gifts in you from the Holy Spirit?
1 Corinthians 12:4 says “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.” I’m writing this Biblical devotional for women on December 30th, 2020. Only three years ago, I was wondering what the purpose of my life was and whether or not I actually had any spiritual gifts. Everything changed since then. Today, I want to share with you how I discovered my gifts and how you can discover yours. I am gifted, and it will be apparent. You are gifted, too! Discovering your spiritual gifts though takes time and effort. It is a journey. And I’ll help you. There’s a secret, which will allow you to know for sure that something is your spiritual gift. However, this is going to be very complicated. I’ll share the secret and also tell you my story but it’s difficult to follow and you may laugh or cry depending on where you are spiritually. Writing this is tough but reading this is even tougher. However, the profound breakthroughs I will share with you will serve you on your own journey if you are ready. If you’re not ready, you probably will get a headache reading this blog, so maybe you should click away now. But if you’re still here, this is my story for God’s glory. May it bless you today!

I am Gifted #52Devotionals Devotions for Women  by Anna Szabo


My Spiritual Gifts

You have the gifts from the Holy Spirit that you may take for granted. Your gifts are unique to you, they are supernatural and irrevocable, even if to you they seem to be mundane and natural. Or you may actually resent your gifts as I did. In any case, you have been uniquely equipped with very special spiritual gifts in order to do the good work, which God prepared in advance for you to do, so that you can fulfill His purpose for your life. I only figured this out very recently, and the process has been quite painful because the gifts, with which God blessed me, I could hardly comprehend, so accepting them was a challenge.

I lived most of my adult life struggling with sexual addiction and alcoholism. You can read my autobiographical blog post called “Getting to know Anna Szabo” and learn about my background. My story of addiction liberation is the very reason why I have such a passion for honoring God with my body. I’ve lived a single and celibate life now for many years. But the pain of the past had me in bondage with my trauma. I would have never ever in a million years imagined being a minister. But God’s ways are higher than our ways…

My healing began when I became a Christian. I gave my life to Christ in 2014, and He started changing me. Jesus gave me a new identity, a new life, a new heart, and a new spirit. Once God’s Spirit began dwelling in me, some of my behaviors were transformed right away. But my anger and bitterness were still there. I needed to decide to set myself free, intentionally. It was a process. It took a few years. When I let go of my anger and bitterness, God revealed to me his special gifts in me.

Before my conscious healing and spiritual awakening, I was dead. Once I allowed God to heal me, I became alive. God’s spiritual gifts started flowing! Before I tell you about those unique, unexpected, and shocking gifts, I want to tell you first about my educational background and professional experience. Why? Just so you can receive the information about my gifts in the context of my actual life. It will allow you to relate to how I felt when God’s spiritual gifts started pouring, or should I say “flowing.” Flowing was exactly what happened to me, but it took time for me to see what was going on with me.

My sex addiction and alcoholism were my coping tactics as I endured a lot of abuse my entire life: from early childhood way into my 30s. Another coping technique I deployed was performance. Achieving big goals was how I escaped my reality of abuse and violence at home. Accomplishments defined and shaped my identity.

When I was 15 years old, I graduated with high honors from school. It was 1998. I was accepted to Kursk Pedagogical College on a full scholarship with only one exam. While there, I did my internship at a local jail with “difficult children” and became passionate about Criminal Justice. After four years of training and practice as an elementary school teacher, I graduated in 2002 with high honors. I then worked at a boarding school with abused and abandoned children while attending a business school. I was accepted to The All-Russian Distance Institute of Finance and Economics (ARDIFE) in 2002 on a full scholarship and graduated with high honors in 2008 after six years. Three years before my graduation from ARDIFE, I enrolled in the South-West State University in Kursk to study Criminal Justice. On February 21st, 2008 I passed my final exams at The All-Russian Distance Institute of Finance and Economics and graduated with high honors receiving a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. On July 18, 2008 I passed my final exams at the South-West State University and graduated with high honors and a Doctor of Jurisprudence. On July 31, 2008 I emigrated from Russia to America and have lived and worked in Atlanta, GA ever since. I graduated with an MBA and a 3.74 GPA from GA State University in 2013 and built a career in digital marketing.

I worked a professional career full of adventure, learning, and growth. After being a teacher, I worked in sales. Then, I did professional training. Finally, I dedicated my career to marketing. Can you see any signs of me being a poet or an artist?

Me neither!

Imagine how I felt when one morning at 4 am I woke up with a poem dwelling in my head. On March 6, 2017 I felt shocked and was left speechless when a whole entire spoken word poem was literally flowing out of my soul into God’s universe. I captured it in my iPhone notes, and another poem came the next day. In the next few months, nearly 200 Christian poems and Biblical affirmations came out of my deepest being. They were profound and also used some of the words and concepts I wasn’t even familiar with, which freaked me out completely because it was beyond logic, and consequently, it was at the time, beyond my comprehension. I was wondering what happened to me, how it was even possible for me to write a poem about the things I didn’t know, and who was the actual author of my poems?

I realized: I am gifted with a spiritual gift.

The author of my poems is God.

So, I called my collection “Poems From God.”

In 2017, God also called me to start a Christian ministry, Online Discipleship for Women. He asked me to start a Christian podcast, too, which I did. Yet, I bottled God. I felt like I just wasn’t the right fit for His ministry.

God’s didn’t need my consent though.

In 2018, the entire year, I was receiving full downloads from God about many aspects of faith, life, joy, peace, and identity. I created books, blogs, coaching programs and models, and hours of helpful content for my podcast, and well as my YouTube channel. I was working a marketing job in SaaS but every day, I was also working on my ministry. God and I battled each other still because He called me to go public with my entire life story, and God won every time. My ministry grew, and I began receiving letters from the people whose lives my faithful work in God’s kingdom has impacted.

In 2019, I continued my marketing career as a Director of Marketing at a SaaS startup. I launched a new tech brand but one Monday morning in late February, I was called by God to quit my job with only $84 in the bank and dedicate most of my time to this ministry. God provided for me but He also challenged me in new ways: He gave me new art. It’s hard to find the words to explain how in the Spring of 2019, paintings and tales were popping in my head and dwelling there until I gave them life. I didn’t even have an art closet or any kind of art supplies.

I went to a local art store, bought canvases, brushes, and paint, and within the next few months, 22 paintings with tales were born. Each painting came with a spiritual tale. I thought I lost my mind. I was shocked by all this. I was creating poetry, devotionals, Christian wall art, paintings, and I wrote a book of three Christian fairytales, all of which arrived at once. Arrived from where? Well… On March 8th, 2019 they just started dwelling in my head. They were just there, complete from start to finish, I just had to capture them, which I did in my notes.

I was shaken by all this to my core. There were so many questions I had. My shock and resentment toward my own creativity are described in a Medium article called “The Picasso and The Einstein in My Head, or How I Became an Artist.” I was basically watching a live play at a local theatre one night. Picasso and Einstein were at a bar fighting over different life issues. They had irreconcilable perspectives. They were at odds. Everyone in the audience laughed, but I wept. The way the play unfolded on that stage, the fight between the numbers-person and the artist, that was my real everyday life, and I was both the Picasso and the Einstein, so I was at odds with myself. But who was I?…

What did “I” even mean for me?

Where was the I whom I always knew and where did the new I come from? Was I going insane? Which I was going insane? How many “I”s did I have? Where were all those different “I”s of me all those years? Was this normal? What was “normal” anyway and who is to say what is normal for my life or which “I” is normal for me? By the way, which I was more me? And did I ever even know the me as I remember myself before all this happened? And what was it that actually happened to me? Was this a crisis of some sort? Was there a name for it?

Has anyone ever experienced this before?

Yes, yes, and yes.

I started meeting other creatives and learned that what I was going through was normal and actually common. It was my soul waking up, liberated from the bondage, it was ready to live fully alive. I started speaking at open mic events, and cried every time I shared my autobiographical spoken work poetry. I was learning to live with the new me, and I was beginning to understand myself more the more I healed. To be honest, on my journey of healing, I began helping others heal as well. I saw how God was using me, and I didn’t need to be perfect.

The Rivers of Living Water

As I was seeking answers and being very uncomfortable with my new me, all while I was changing rapidly, God revealed to me exactly what was happening and why. This what I’m about to share is the very secret, which had mentioned earlier.

Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.

John 7:38

I believed in Jesus, and He gave me the rivers of living water. They started flowing from deep within me, which refers to the Holy Spirit in me. Some verses refer to it as “belly.” The Holy Spirit gave me all that content. My spiritual gift is communication for the purpose of ministering to women. Sometimes, my mentors would ask how I was doing and I’d say: “Exploding with the rivers from my belly.”

It was true. Sometimes, I also call it being pregnant. The rivers of living water flowing from my belly does feel like pregnancy. There’s a message dwelling in me, I feel like going into labor, give birth, and finally, I can relax until the next time. This year, I’ve been “pregnant” quite a lot, so now, as the result, this Christian blog for women has one million words of content; my YouTube channel has almost 300 videos; and my Christian podcast has been download tens of thousands of times all over the globe. I’ve been writing on average a poem a week this year. Also, in 2020, I delivered my talk at TEDx Marietta Square on September 20th, which was a long-lasting and heavy “pregnancy.” Here’s the outcome of it: “The Healing Power of Self-Pity.” After my TEDx talk, I exploded with the rivers of living water. Only now, I accept my gift, I’m grateful for it, I cherish it, and I leverage it to encourage and empower women. I diligently use God’s spiritual gifts for His divine purpose in His kingdom.

Using God’s Gifts Diligently

At first, I was scared to accept all my gifts and respond to God’s call to ministry. I felt insecure. I didn’t feel equipped or qualified to be what God was calling me to be. I was confused by the outpouring of all the poems, paintings, tales, affirmations… I was wondering why God chose me. Of course, the answer was in the Bible.

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 

1 Peter 4:10

I realized that I had the gift not because of my own doing or anything I did to deserve it. God gave me the gift because His children needed it. The gift was given to me to serve God’s kingdom as a faithful steward. I accepted my gift and stopped questioning God.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

James 1:17


The reason why I had the gift was to give God glory. Glorifying God is what I was created to do. The gift is from God for God. It’s God’s light that’s shining through my gift, not my light. I understood how God wanted me to serve Him with my gift.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.

Romans 12:6

God’s Irrevocable Gifts

Once I started diligently pursuing God’s gifts in me through this Christian ministry, more gifts began showing up. One of them is writing these long devotionals. Given my educational background in business and law and professional experience in marketing, I am shocked at how I can just sit down and write a long Biblical devotional that actually helps people all over the world. Glory to God! It’s all His doing.

Anna Szabo's Devotionals testimony


Another gift is my Christian podcast for women. God called me to produce it when I had not a clue how to go about recording, editing, or syndicating a podcast. I didn’t know how to go about it. God did it all! The Anna Szabo Show reached over 10000 Christian women worldwide in its first few weeks. When women began sharing with me their reviews and feedback, I cried. It’s an honor to have the gift of communication and passion for God. I am so glad I diligently used His gift. It is a privilege to be God’s vessel. I am grateful that God touches hearts through me. I enjoy the gift so much that I even began fearing it may go away someday. I didn’t actually know that this gift is irrevocable.

The Anna Szabo Show Christian Podcast review

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

Romans 11:29

The gift from God is irrevocable. When I diligently pursue it, it bears much fruit. When I get too busy with my worldly priorities, the gift is still there swirling on the inside but I’m not bearing fruit.

Do not neglect your gift.

1 Timothy 4:14

I realized that I was for some time neglecting the gift because I wasn’t pursuing it diligently due to busyness and also my inability to comprehend and accept it initially. Then, one of the large Christian organizations in Atlanta sent a film crew to do a story about my life. The filming was at my home from 9 am till 5 pm on July 28th, 2018. During the filming, the producer who just met me, kept talking about my gift of writing. She couldn’t stop saying that I have the gift of writing and repeatedly called me a writer. She showed me through a series of thought-provoking questions how the irrevocable gift of God was given to me to produce divine and sacred Fruit for His kingdom. Since then, I committed my life to diligently pursuing God’s gift.

“I Am Gifted” Affirmation

Do you know what your spiritual gift is? What kind of special gift has God anointed you with? Have you been neglecting your spiritual gift or diligently pursuing it? Are you ready to diligently use God’s irrevocable gift to serve His purpose? If you are, memorize the Biblical affirmation I created for you below and practice it often so that you can remember to embrace and cherish your special, unique, God-ordained, purpose-fulfilling gift. How do you plan to diligently pursue God’s irrevocable special gift in you? Share with me in the comments below so that I can cheer you on. Let me know how and when you discovered your gift.

I am Gifted #52Devotionaals

I'm uniquely gifted by my Father God.
And I use my gifts to display His grace.
From the Holy Spirit special skills I got.
Genuinely humbled, my gifts I cherish and embrace.

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