I Am Blessed

The hashtag, #blessed has been used over 260,000 times on Instagram alone. Often, this hashtag falls within a caption attached to a photo of an idyllic life—a family wearing coordinated outfits and big smiles, a picturesque scene from a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, or a photo that captures a big win in someone’s career.

I wouldn’t argue that the gifts we receive in this life are blessings. Acknowledging that we are blessed is a wonderful exercise in expressing gratitude and recognizing that what we have is a gift from God and not the result of our own grit.

Thanksgiving offers a wonderful opportunity to pause and practice gratitude. Gratitude shifts our perspective on what matters. It turns our heart toward contentment. With gratitude, our focus moves from taking to giving.

But what if we’re missing something? What if giving thanks for the gifts we receive is only one avenue of blessing?

It was almost a year ago when my ideas about what it means to be blessed began to shift.

On one particularly difficult day in our infertility story, I was on the phone with my mentor, trying to make sense of the feelings inside of me.  It was the first week of Advent following the lighting of the Hope candle. My mentor explained that he had been reflecting on the idea of hope. I was comforted by the whole conversation but there was one statement he made that stayed with me: “Hope only gets deployed in times of struggle,” he said.

Something inside me shifted upon hearing those words. This truth didn’t eliminate my pain, but it did change the pain. I wasn’t grateful for the struggle. But in the midst of my struggle, I was grateful to be a woman who knows hope.

I remembered the apostle Paul talking about the “thorn in his flesh” and expressing gratitude not for the thorn itself, but for the way it kept him dependent on Christ.

I love the way the Message version of 2 Corinthians 12:9 articulates this truth after Paul shares that he has begged God to remove this painful thorn three times:

“And then He told me:

My grace is enough; it’s all you need.

My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began to appreciate the gift.”

Infertility and miscarriage is a story I would have never been brave enough to choose. It’s not the story I would have written for our family. It’s not the pain I pictured when I said “for better or for worse” on my wedding day. 

But I can tell you with heartfelt honesty that while I’m not thankful for it, I do feel thankful in it because it’s the thorn that keeps me tethered to the hope of Christ. It’s the struggle that broke me open to God’s transformational work in my life. And it’s the heartache that showed me that a blessed life is not a life without challenge, but a life of growth and intimacy with Jesus.

Today, I am a woman who has said good-bye to five babies I will never get to meet this side of heaven. I am a woman who has welcomed one precious son into the world. I am a woman who has found herself longing in prolonged seasons of waiting. I am a woman who is in the final weeks of carrying her second baby boy. And I am a woman who, statistically speaking, will likely face more loss in the future. And in every one of these circumstances, I am a woman who is blessed because a blessed person is someone who has been awakened to her hunger for Christ and is now ready to be filled with Christ alone.

Maybe the blessing is easy to access this Thanksgiving…when the “what are you thankful for?” question is asked at the Thanksgiving dinner table, you know exactly what you are going to say. Or, maybe this year, the blessing is more difficult to see. Like Paul, you’ve begged for your “thorn” to be removed over and over again. I would never tell you to look on the bright side of that thorn or find the silver lining in it. But I might ask you what is different in your life because of it? I might ask you how you’ve grown as a result of having it in your life. I would probably ask you how it’s taught you more about yourself, about God, and the relationship between the two of you.

I’m learning that the things in this life that we would call “gifts” are only one avenue of blessing.