Disguised as Heartache

A popular Christian song out right now is 'Blessing' by Laura Story.  It's powerful to say the least. The music is beautiful, moving - but the lyrics are the intensity of this song's emotive force.  And when I say 'emotive', I do NOT mean it is merely an emotional movement that the hearer experiences.  If allowed to, the lyrics will take you to a place deep in your spirit, the place where you yield your will to the heavenly Father's.   

Before I go on, I want to share the lyrics of Laura Story's moving song: 

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
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
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

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 aching(s) 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

If music moves you as it does me, you will need to pull over in your car to the side of the road if this plays while you are driving. 

I recently shared this song with a dear man, whom I deeply respect, and I am not so sure it ministered to him in any way, shape, or form.  He'll let me know if I'm wrong, he's that kind of guy.  But, I think to him this song said that God is going to bring trauma and pain into your life to create goodness deep within....that we should see our trials as God saying they are the means he'll show his love, by letting you suffer, not taking it all away, and hoping you get the message in it all.  I'm sorry if I am interpreting my friend's point wrong..I'll print a retraction, or explanation....or he may post a response, if I'm not right.

I see this song as something so different.  Life on earth is so full of pain, heartache, stress, trauma, delight, messes, crap and sucky things.  God never one time promised us He would remove them just because we trust in Him. Perfection is for heaven...for eternity.  Not for earth.  Our Christianity only makes us able to face each trial with hope..hope for eternity, knowledge of the truth that there is a better day coming.

But, in the meantime, each trial, each tear...each day of mourning..can be a step along the pathway that leads us to the feet of Jesus, to His image in us, to knowing Him.  Isn't that the goal all along?  Believe me, I know the pain of being challenged about my desire for eternal good versus this earth.  When I think of being married again to a great husband, I am challenged to wonder about eternal happiness rather than earthly happiness.  Challenged to consider one thousand years from now after having lived for God's glory alone, rather than a few short eighty years here on earth lived for my glory. 

I know the pain of such a thought and a challenge.  I'm not saying AT ALL that having delight on earth is wrong.  No way!!! Don't believe it.    What I am saying, is the absence of delight is not a measuring stick of God's love for you and His work in your life. 

What if shattered dreams were the pathway to greater dreams that have their source in Him?  I'm challenged to this question by Larry Crabb in Shattered Dreams.   What if, instead of thinking of crappy moments, tears, days of sorrow and heartache as some horrible, nasty time to trudge through with lamen,t we instead think of them as dark nights of the soul that lead us to the light of knowing Jesus more, of knowing God cares for every hurt and ache, He weeps over us with love, He yearns for our trust in Him, our trust that He has a greater good...He doesn't give us our desire for lesser things when He knows they pale in comparison to His desires and plans for us?  What if?

None of these thoughts is shared tritely.  I assure you of this.  My life's story is filled with traumas and aches that led me to become a trembling woman on the side of a bed, daily rocking back and forth, begging God for deliverance.   Really.  So, as I write, it is not as one who knows no heartache enough to be able to speak from the place you may feel now, or in the recent past, or near future. 

Know that the Father in heaven can redeem every loss in this life; make it of incalculable worth for eternity - which is quite a bit longer than our eighty or so years on earth.  Hard to fathom, heh?

Pain is pain, heart ache, trauma, sucky things, crappy feelings, anger comes .......but, we get to choose if we let God turn tears to His work of Mercy; or trials to His blessings of lessons learned, compassion gained, characteristics of Jesus made known in us....or do we get bitter and angry at Him.

 Will we see through the disguise?