Trials: Blessings in Disguise?

Years ago, driving home every Thursday night after meeting with my wives care group, I’d hear Laura Story’s song, “Blessings”. It must have been on a loop to faithfully play week after week. Read 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 is 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.

All the while, You hear each desperate plea, and long that we’d have faith to believe.

When friends betray us, When darkness seems to win,

We know that pain reminds this heart that this is not our home.

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?

What if trials of this life—the rain, the storms, the hardest nights—are your mercies in disguise?

Quite often as women who have experienced betrayal, we believe the lie that we must have done something to bring this upon ourselves. Instead of blessing, we believe God must have pronounced a curse upon us. But what if what we consider the trial IS actually a blessing in disguise?

I like what Jenny Allen has to say: ”You have to thank God for the seemingly good and seemingly bad because really, you don’t know the difference.”

In the middle of the mess, we aren’t quick to recognize the blessing. Most often, it’s years down the road when we recognize God’s hand. 

Women I know who have experienced healing look back and now thank God for the hardship. Without it, they would not have grown in their relationship with the Lord. But isn’t that God’s intent all along? To draw us to Himself? 

Next time you experience a trial, remember God working through it for your good. He is faithful and he has the big picture which isn’t always in our clouded view.