Sometimes the greatest gift is the one we didn’t know we needed—someone who suddenly walks into our lives when we’re caught up in someone else’s feelings, a job we get after one we don’t get, happiness we find after a different door closes in our face.
Sometimes the greatest gift is the one we didn’t ask for—a friend’s unexpected arms around our shoulders when we felt alone, a compliment from a stranger in a dark moment, an opportunity we didn’t plan for, but which shaped our entire lives from this moment on.
Sometimes the greatest gift is the one we receive when we think God isn’t listening—when we pray, when we ask, when we hope with all our might and watch life crumble beneath us. When we shake our fists at the sky, we ask God why he can’t hear our cries. When we feel abandoned, as He left us when we needed Him the most.
But suddenly, we find blessings that come out of pain—ones we never imagined, or prayed for, or saw coming.
Sometimes the greatest gift is the one God gives us when we are too busy praying for something else.
Often, we pray for certain things, for certain people. We want life to bend according to us; we wanted everything to follow ours plans. We pray—selfishly, clinging to the present—seeing only what is right in front of us and not what is to come.
But our Father sees beyond our narrow vision. He sees how our lives will shape and grow and change. He listens to our prayers. But prayers are not wishes, and he is not a framework, intended to be given to us at will.
God hears all the hopes in our hearts, but He moves us according to His perfect will. And sometimes it’s not that I ignore you that we wish for, but that you shape our future to be much better than we thought.
It’s not that he doesn’t see the pain we feel or the people we wish to love. It’s not that he ignores the feelings running through our veins, the burdens we long to be rid of, the pain we desperately want to end.
The truth is that He hears, sees, cares, and knows better than we do what we need.
Sometimes an unanswered prayer is the greatest blessing of all.
Because it changes our way, because it shows us the original love, because it moves us to be somewhere else, another person after the pain. Because it teaches us how to let go, get up, and move on.
Because it breaks us down, rebuilds us, and strengthens us in ways we are not capable of doing on our own.
Sometimes an unanswered prayer allows His plan to come true—for people to draw closer to Him, for life to go as it was intended, for broken hearts to heal, for loved ones to go so that all may see His truth and unending love.
Sometimes an unanswered prayer brings hope, brings light, brings truth to which we are blinded when we are caught wanting something else.
We pray and pray, people are still walking, our hearts are breaking, sickness and death and pain are happening all around us and we see nothing but what we see. he didn’t find out, what is God he didn’t give us.
Until, suddenly, one day we take a deep breath and sniff with hope. We smell new blessings. We smell peace and understanding of His will.
And we see what it wasn’t like that the answer has led us to greater places than before, given us exactly what we needed, shaped and built and strengthened our faith in ourselves and in Him. And we take steps forward, knowing that we he didn’t receiving is the greatest gift of all.
