the one about the faith struggles...

Blessings - Laura Story
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

Courtesy of lyricshall.com
'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 that 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 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

I've been struggling a lot with my faith lately. I struggle with trusting that there is, indeed, a plan and a purpose for my life and that I was created whole, complete, without flaws and imperfections like i perceive myself as posessing. I also struggle with an immense amount of anger an confusion as to why, a God who claims to love me and have a plan and a future for me with no intent to harm me, could ever let me suffer and struggle like He has. I've prayed and prayed night after night for Him to take it all away, to remove the thorn from my side and allow me to walk freely without chains. After a while I thought to myself that maybe I was praying for the wrong thing. So I began to pray that He would simply change my mindset, which in turn would give me the ability to then change my behaviors, decisions, and eventually my life outcome. Still, my mindset remained stuck in old ways of thinking and the old, negative, obsessive tapes played over and over again no matter how hard I tried to ignore, shut out, stuff down, muffle, and turn them off. I began to wonder what the purpose of my struggles were. What on earth could God be doing with me while I was weak, sick, frail, and struggling daily with my own inner demons? What good could I do or be to anyone, let alone to myself? The more I tried to make sense of things, the more confused I became until eventually I just shut myself off. I felt disconnected from God, alone, and hopeless. These depths of faithless despair are where I am trying to come up out of. I'm trying to renew the hope I once felt...the connectedness I once had attained. I am trying to see that there is purpose in pain, though I may not be able to see it right now. Though I find myself back in a very similar situation and the scenery looks the same, and I wonder "why? why again?" I know that there IS a reason, even if I can't put my finger on it yet. I am doing the best I can not to lose hope that He will pull me up out of the depths...that I will rise from these ashes, even if it takes almost burning down before being rescued. I hold onto the belief that Hope does not disappoint. Faith is a constant struggle of mine, and when I feel disconnected from myself, when the eating disorder has me disconnected from myself and those around me, i also feel very disconnected from the God that I know loves me regardless of who I am and where I've been. Reconnecting with my faith means being willing to reconnect with myself, as well. It is part of a long and often painful process, one that I need to be working on right now, while I am still holding on to some sense of hope.
Faith is not about believing or knowing or having things look perfectly and go according to perfect little plans...faith is about holding on when things are going "wrong" and seeing the struggles as those little blessings in disguise.

thank you, Laura Story, for the beautiful song and beautiful reminder.