Blessings in disguise

What is a blessing? A new car? A new house? A new baby? A husband? A promotion? ...A trial, a hard time in life? WAIT! WHAT? Yes on the first part, but a trial? A death? A struggle? How can that be a blessing?

Trials in our life can bring us closer to God. They show us our dependence on God. This blossoming relationship is one of the biggest blessings that we can ever have. There are also trials that do an 180 and become blessings in themselves.  At the time 9-11 occurred, we knew a young mother who worked at the Pentagon.  A few days earlier, her mother was sent to the hospital, so, on that scary morning, she was at the hospital visiting her mom, which made her late to work, thus saving her life. If she had been at work, she would have died, because she worked right where the plane hit. You hear story after story of how God's hand is on lives.

One of my favorite verses is found in Genesis 5:20. Joseph is talking to his brothers, the same ones who sold him into slavery He says "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive."   Joseph was able to save the same ones who wanted him dead.  He because 2nd in command in one of the largest nations of it's time. 

"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;" I Corinthians 1:27.  I love that we serve a God who make the small things, big, who can take our brokenness and make it into a beautiful story.

Here is a sweet song, written by someone who knows trials and pains and still sees God's blessings in them...

Here is the story behind Laura Story and her song BLESSINGS...

The album that I did three to four years ago happened right after my husband went through surgery for a brain tumor. So a lot of the ideas that I was writing about then were just very fresh, about how do we worship in the midst of trials. So fast forwarding a few years later, a lot of things have changed. A lot of things have gotten better with his health, and a lot of things have not. We pray for God to bless us, but what does it look like when I spend four or so years praying for healing for my husband that never comes? I feel like we’ve kind of gotten to a place of having to make a choice. Are we going to judge God based on our circumstances that we don’t understand, or are we going to choose to judge our circumstances based on what we know to be true about God? Not that I choose the right thing every day, but I’m learning that every morning when I wake up to choose to trust God.
And that’s what “Blessings” is about. It’s just considering that maybe the blessing is actually found in the absence of the thing that I’m praying for. No one wants a brain tumor, and no one wants a severed marriage and these things that we pray that God will reconcile. But even though this situation is definitely nothing that we ever would have asked for or prayed for, there has been a depth of intimacy with the Lord that I’m not sure I would have known apart from such a hard road that we’ve walked. And in the end, if I’ve learned to cling to that old rugged cross all the more, I truly can say that I’m a blessed person.

Laura has learned that even if everything is taken away, you are still blessed by having a God and a relationship with him. God is God and He is still on the throne! We are blessed! - rejoicing in the present!