Blessings

I have been wrestling these words on a daily basis for a few weeks now. It's been an extremely hard day for me today and these words keeping knocking. I really don't want to answer.

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

These have been the daily prayers of Jeremy, me, and the kids since I can remember. 'You hear each spoken need' - that's like a kick in the stomach, because it makes me feel like God thought I didn't need Jeremy. I still need him. 

‘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

These are the words that have haunted me in my sleep. One of the faith issues I've been having with myself is realizing how much closer I feel to God now. Not close like buddy-buddy or to say I'm now so spiritual. I'm still angry and have a hard time wanting to get on board with God some days, but in my despair, I've called out to Him more times than ever before in my life. I never used to talk to God this much when I did believe what I was preaching. Now suddenly, when I want to throw everything out the window, God finds this way of seeping in, of keeping me at arms length just waiting to wrap His arms back around me when I'm ready. 'What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near.' It just hurts to even think it.

"What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise." What could God have possibly saved me from by allowing me to lose my husband at 31?!?!? I want to scream this at God, but truth be told, I'm afraid He'll answer. With the blinders I have on, I can't possibly see anything worse than losing the love of my life so young, while carrying his third child. I don't want to think that it was God's mercy in disguise.

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

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

Ah, this is where it lies: "We know the pain reminds this heart that this is not our home." If it was, I'd have left it awhile ago. For the first time in my entire life, I don't feel at home here. I don't feel like I want to stay. I'm ready to be home. Perhaps it's dowsed in the yearning to be with Jeremy, but it's the pull to hold on to everything I know to be true, even though it just doesn't make any sense right now.

‘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 aching 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

God, please hear my prayer. I am not ready for these words in my heart yet. They sting and seem to suck the validity out of the pain I feel. But they keep knocking and knocking and knocking. And every time I try to walk away from it, I still hear the tapping. I want to hold on to my selfishness, that says I'm the only one who matters in this dark time. Open my eyes to appreciate the blessings that have come through raindrops. Let my heart accept the good that has come with this bad. Right now, I just don't want any of the good - I want my old life back. I want my love back. The future is much too scary to look into, help me take it one day at a time. And Lord, if this awful pain is a mercy in disguise, keep it from me. Make me unaware of anything more painful than what I feel today.