What If Your Blessings Come Through Raindrops...

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

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And 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

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

The lyrics above are from a beautifully written song called "Blessings" by Laura Story. I'm probably way behind the boat on this one, but I heard it for the first time this past Sunday in small church when Pastor Justin shared a lesson on praise with us. He talked about how we not only need to praise God when things are going really well...but also when it seems like we're drowning. No matter how bad things get, there are always reason to praise Him...and finding a little perspective in the midst of it can show us that things could always be worse.

This song, though, really touched me. It felt like the thoughts I've had so many nights over the past two years. I won't lie...sometimes it felt like God was the furthest thing from me..and that He either just didn't care about me, or that He wanted me to be miserable and depressed. Some was from circumstance beyond my control...but much from my own mistakes and bad choices. I didn't feel worthy of anyone's love, let alone God's...so why would I think He cared about me?

Hindsight is a pretty amazing thing. Looking back now on the past two years, I can see His hand all over it. My sickness, though not fun at all, taught me that I can't control everything. Some things are out of my hands, and I have to trust in God to take care of them...and learned the hard way that He always has a better plan than I do anyway. Waiting almost 2 years to find a match and have the transplant was heart wrenching and an emotional roller coaster...but God knew that I wasn't where I needed to be, and he patiently had me wait and endured my cries and anger, knowing that I would appreciate it and be really ready for it in His time. Last fall, my house of cards fell down when the mistakes I had made in my personal life came to light. I was very caught up in people's perception of me...and this pretty much took that all away. While I was in the depths of depression about this, God used that time to break me, and start from scratch to begin to mold me into a man of character, one that He could finally be proud of. Did God want me to make those bad choices? No way...but He came alongside me and kept loving despite how bad I disappointed Him, and used and is still using it to teach and guide me...and even to help others avoid the path I chose.

You see...those sleepless nights when I cried out to God asking "Where are you? Why aren't you here? Why aren't you making this better? Why did you leave me now, when I needed you the most?! WHERE ARE YOU?!?!?!"

In His still small voice, He said this: "I'm right beside you...where I've always been...and I'll wait here patiently until you can finally see me because I love you so desperately. I haven't gone anywhere...you did."

Last August, I finally heard and saw Him. After being broken for Him, and turning my life back over to His lead...I watched Him get to work. He took my wife who no one would have blamed for leaving, and gave her a heart of forgiveness and restoration, and our relationship is stronger now than it has ever been. He took a church that we were new to, and made it our home, and surrounded us with people that truly love us for us. He brought people into our lives that I would have never thought of to stand in the gap for us, and to support us unconditionally. All blessings to be sure...and believe me, it came along with flash floods of raindrops and rivers of tears...but in my life, the best lessons I've learned have come through some of the hardest times of my life.

Even the other night, as I held my wife and we shared our sorrows and disappointment and some things that still hurt and sting, I had to be reminded of how He has blessed us in all the ways I listed above...and be reminded that if He can bring us through all of that, He can and has a plan to bring us the rest of the way.

Can I see it now? Nope.
Do I need to? Nope.

I trust Him...and I strive to be open to His lead when He chooses to include me in the process. I try to run everything I do and say through this filter:

1. Will this honor God?
2. Will this honor my wife and family?
3. Will this cause someone to stumble, fall, or think poorly of Christ because of my
actions or words?

Do I always succeed? Not on your life...but taking a few seconds to run my thoughts through that filter have saved me from making big mistakes more than once.

I guess what I'm really trying to get at is this:
If you're in the midst of a hard time or trial in your own life right now, don't walk away from Jesus by assuming He's walked away from you. Instead, ask Him what He wants to teach you in this...and seek His word and spend time listening in prayer to find the answer...and just remember, no matter how bad things are...He's right there, just waiting for you to collapse in His mighty arms and say "I'm done, Jesus...it's yours."

As I'm finishing this, God has laid it on my heart to pray for anyone who reads this and feels that way....and I'm going to do that. If you want me to pray for you personally and specifically, you can drop me an email at this address. Promise it'll be between you, me and Him.

Thanks for listening to me ramble...and here's hoping we can find God's blessings in the midst of raindrops today. Here's Laura's song..and the album is called "Blessings":