What If God’s Blessings Come Through Rain Drops? What If His Healing comes Through Tears?

While driving my kids to school this morning my son Brayden, who is ten years old, starting talking about the sermon he heard this weekend and how he knew we were going through these trials because God is preparing him to be a pastor. He said that many great pastors, leaders, and professional people have suffered a lot before getting to where they are today. He told a story that Joel Osteen shared last week and how it gave him hope.

We began talking about what things in this life are most important and the kids decided that houses, cars, money, and other material things are not important but what is important is how many people you take to heaven with you. It has been a long seven months of trial to get to this place where the kids understand the deeper things of God in the midst of our sufferings but I wouldn’t change it for anything. They were talking about how people can’t take stuff with them to heaven but how they can take people with them and they decided that would be their focus while they are on this earth.

Can you even imagine how my heart skipped a beat when I heard these words coming from an eight and ten year old? For months they have seen people living in houses, driving nice cars, eating at nice restaurants, buying everything they want at the mall, and they have been envious. They have complained about how unfair it is and how bad they want a house, a nice car, lots of money, and other things. As a mom I have wanted these things for them too but even more greater than wanting them to have these things has been my desire that they would come to understand that all these things will one day pass away but a life hidden in Christ is eternal.

Day after day I would encourage them and try to explain things to them only to be met with more complaints and grumbling, until today when they finally got it! As I listened to their words I thanked God for ministering to their hearts. What a joy it was to hear them say they didn’t want a house unless we were going to invite people over so we could show them Christ’s love and introduce them to a relationship with Him. They don’t want a nice car unless we are going to use it to take people to church and use it to help people. They don’t want a lot of money unless we are going to use it for God’s purposes.

Sometimes God’s greatest blessings come through our hardest trials and sometimes God’s favor comes through our most difficult circumstances. We cry out for justice in the midst of them thinking that God is ignoring us but what I have learned during these last seven months is that sometimes His stillness in the midst of the storm is His quiet reassurance that we do not need to fear. He is not shaken by the thunder and He is not caught off guard by the torrential downpour of rain that floods our lives through trials! On the contrary He is at peace and He wants us to be at peace too knowing beyond a shadow of doubt that He is protecting us and making a way for us to make it through safely!

As I sat there and listened to my children I realized that my life extends far past the number of years I am on this earth and the way I respond to this life will have an impact on how my children respond for years after I am gone. I also realized that the greater lesson of my own personal perseverance is in teaching my children through an example of a peaceful countenance that God is faithful to His Word at all times! They are looking to me to show them that God is real unlike Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, or the Tooth Fairy! And when I react to the trials and difficult circumstances with a peaceful countenance, the quiet reassurance of the Lord floods their hearts and they begin to understand the deeper things of God! Isn’t that really what parenting is all about?

So now when trials come I will say, “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?” And I will not complain when the next storm hits me by surprise and I won’t question if God is here in the midst of it. I won’t focus on my own life! I will view it as God giving me an opportunity to show His Word in action to my children and my focus will be on teaching them to trust in Him with their whole hearts and to acknowledge His presence so they will be comforted in knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is making a way there seems to be no way.

“‘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?”