"Blessings in disguise"

I think everyone should learn the song "Blessings" by Laura Story. It's absolutely amazing...and really helps you remember God DOES have a plan for everything He sends our way.

Here are the lyrics:

"We pray for blessings, we pray for peace.
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep.
We pray for healing, for prosperity.
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering.

All the while, You hear each spoken need,
yet love us way too much to give us lesser things.

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?

What if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise?

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear.
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near.
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love,
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough.

And all the while You hear each desperate plea,
And long that we'd have faith to believe.

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?

When friends betray us, when darkness seems to win.
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the achings of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst
This world can’t satisfy?

And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise?" ("Blessings" by Laura Story)

We can't see the future. We don't know why we suffer through some situations. We don't know why God removes certain people from our life, or why our friends "betray" or turn on us. We can't see the bigger picture and so often think it's all for nothing; that God is just torturing us with hardships and trials. I have been there time and time again; then I'm reminded of all of His amazing promises. He loves us, and everything He does is for our best interest. To fulfill His ultimate plan. We can't see why certain things happened to us, but down the road, whether here on earth or in heaven someday, we will see the outcome of that one thing and suddenly realize it made perfect sense. Sometimes we must go through the fire simply to be a witness for someone else. Maybe God knows we will be able to encourage someone we will meet one day because of a certain circumstance we went through...one we wouldn't have touched otherwise.

Like my mom says, "If we could see what God can see in the future, we'd slap ourselves and say duh. That makes perfect sense!" But the truth is, we can't. That is why we have our faith. We must wholly and completely trust that God will protect us and not give us anything we can't handle. We are so much stronger than we let ourselves believe...because unlike the world, we have God on our side. He will always win, always prevail, always make things right. He will never leave us, even when we leave Him for a time.

Things I've seen, done and have happened to me in my life (though I am still young) I can see now why some of those things happened...and it has made me a stronger person because of it. I've been able to encourage people that I wouldn't have been able to be there for if I hadn't gone through those things.

Even looking back on my friends and how I saw the situation back then...I see now that so many friendships didn't work not because of the other person, but because I was trying to take control of the situation and left God out of it; of course it was going to all crash down on me! I can look back and see those kinds of things and I realize now when I am with friends or talking to them, I need to let God speak through me and not try to show "Jessica" to them but show "Christ" to them and be there, love them and encourage them as God has done so many times for me.

I have to say this; most of my blessings in my life HAVE been disguised...things I thought were awful at the time I see now were things to help me grow in Christ and become who He has planned for me to be. And I thank Him for all of those fire treatments.

"What if my greatest disappointments, or the achings of this life, are the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy? And what if trials of this life...the rain, the storms, the hardest nights...Are Your mercies in disguise?"