Blessed

January 4th 2012, as I was ready to enter my office and begin work, I got a nose bleed.   There’s no need to go into all of the details, let’s just say it was severe enough that emergency medical was called.  As I lay in the ambulance waiting to be taken to the hospital, one of the EMT’s announced my blood pressure reading to the other, “280 over 160, transport immediately.”   Needless to say, at that moment I didn’t feel blessed.  Laying in the emergency room with doctors trying to get my B/P down and control the bleeding, I didn’t feel blessed.  During the weekly doctor visits that followed, I didn’t feel blessed.  Then one day my doctor said, “You’re doing much better.  Do you have any idea how lucky you were?  How easily you could have died?”  Only then, when I could see things more clearly, did I recognize my blessing.

One night a few months later, as my family was finishing dinner, my then 19 year old unmarried daughter, summoned all of the courage she could, and announced to us that she was pregnant.  Needless to say, at that moment I didn’t feel blessed.  However, my daughter, as frightened as she was to give us the news, still came to us.  She didn’t run away, she trusted her families love.  My son, already grasping his role as uncle and eventual godfather, stepped forward, as a man, and helped to calm a situation that could have easily gotten out of control. Now, along with two great children, I have a beautiful 19 month old grandson who has become the light of our world.  Can God take sin and change it to perfection?  It appears that He can.  Only now, when I can see things more clearly, do I recognize my blessing.

Just weeks later, about a month before my 33rd work anniversary, I was informed by my company that my services would no longer be needed.  I was being let go.  Needless to say, at that moment I didn’t feel blessed.  It’s been almost two years, I’ve lost touch with people whom I once considered friends, that does not make me feel blessed.  I’ve been told by many not to worry, that God has a plan for me, and although past experience tells me that He most assuredly does, I still don’t feel blessed.  Time and again God has proven His faithfulness to me, yet far too often, until He makes the results of His blessings clear, I am unable to believe.  Once again I hear myself saying, “Show me God.  Prove yourself.”

John 20: 24-29

Now Thomas (called Didymus) one of the twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.  Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it into my side.  Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, ” Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

If you take my story and change the details, it becomes your story; maybe instead of the loss of a job, it’s the loss of a loved one.  Instead of an unplanned pregnancy, it’s a broken relationship.  And maybe, just like Thomas and me, you cannot yet see the blessings that God has planned from these “tragedies.”  Remain faithful to Him, you will.