Disappointments and Blessings

Disappointments and Blessings

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.  Isaiah 55:8

How about that for a Friday kick in the pants!  As I think about the Prophet Isaiah’s words, they have a more truthful application to my life than I’d like to admit!  My thoughts ramble off into the back 40 during prayer and the things I’m thinking are definitely not His thoughts and sometimes, my ways are so NOT His ways!   Why do we do that…when we know we shouldn’t speak words to others we wouldn’t speak directly to Him and we know His way and His plan trump ours EVERY time? Yet we keep runnin around sayin stuff we shouldn’t say and doin stuff that our stubborn nature tells us is easier!  I guess it all leads me back to the truth…I’m just a big ole sinner who needs the love and mercy of a Gracious God because I sure can’t get it right without Him!  Maybe that’s the whole point!

Last Sunday at Mass Fr. Gordon (we call him Fr. Smiley because he is the most contagiously joyful and happy man ever!) taught us a prayer.  Here it is, “Thank You God, Your will be done!”  Even I can remember that one! Seems simple and easy and makes sense...until you begin to think about when you should say it!  It’s going to be easy to say that little prayer when I get a good parking spot, or when something good happens.  The tricky part is when the yucky stuff happens.  Fr. Gordon used the examples, when you loose your keys in the snow, “Thank you God, Your will be done.” Or when you loose your cell phone, “Thank you God, Your will be done…now I have more time to talk to You.”  Seven little words that can change everything!  I think we can get so busy we forget to have that ongoing dialogue with Our Father, maybe lost keys and slow traffic and broken mower belts really are a tiny nudge inviting us to speak with Him.

Disappointments are a great place to plug in this prayer!  When things don’t go the way we plan, we can get pretty down.  I remember not getting a teaching job I wanted so badly!  I prayed, I researched, I practiced interviewing I did everything to prepare yet despite my best efforts, the interview committee picked someone else!  I was so disappointed!  I called my mom in tears and she listened to me blubber on and on and when I was finished, she softly said, “It wasn’t your job to get!”  I remembered that   conversation clear as a bell in church last Sunday as Fr. Gordon was talking about that very simple little prayer and on the drive home, Isaiah’s words chimed in and I was overwhelmed with the power of God’s plan.  It hit me that if I had gotten that teaching job, I would not have gone to K-State, I would not have found out about the job opening with the State Department of Education in Michigan, I would not have moved here, met and married Dave Wohlfert, had three wonderful children and my life would NOT be any of the terrific things it is right now!  Thank you God, Your will be done!  And it was done…with amazing attention to detail I might add!  It’s surprising what seven little words can stir up!

God always knows what He’s doing.  We have to thank Him especially when things don’t go our way.  I don’t know about you but sometimes I forget that part.  The harder something is, the bigger our thank you should be!  He blesses us through good and happy things and He blesses us BIGGER through the difficult, disappointing and heartbreaking!  We tend to see what’s good for us; He sees what’s good for ALL of His children.  We have to remember we aren’t the only ones He has to care for.  Our disappointment is most likely someone else’s blessing…we can stamp our feet like a spoiled impatient toddler or we can use that time for some of the greatest prayer and fortifying ever.  He doesn’t withhold things to make us squirm, He waits for the perfect time and the perfect place and the perfect peace…all He asks is that we thank Him and ask Him to show us His way while we wait on His perfect timing.  His ways, His words…yeah, it makes sense since we are His children!

Blessings on your day!

A seed to plant:  Write this little prayer down and stick it somewhere so you’ll remember to pray it often.  Thank you God, Your will be done!

Copyright 2013 Sheri Wohlfert

Blessings on your day!