The unseen good under the bad

While doing my early morning walk on Boracay beach, I could not help but think of the many challenges that we all face in life. Our daughter contracted COVID-19 when she started school abroad, my sister came down with breast cancer, I had a serious accident with a power tool that landed me in the hospital. Our other sister had to quit her job abroad after eye complications resulting from glaucoma and an uncaring unit manager. Last but not the least, another brother landed in the hospital, had a 12-hour double surgery and is still recuperating. On top of it all, a relationship that took years to reinstate was once again inexplicably torn.

As I reflected on each and every situation or challenge, it would have been easier to dismiss it all as bad luck, spiritual attack or poor health. But just then a song by Laura Story entitled “Blessings” came up on my playlist. The song is a sobering reminder that not all prayers are answered the way we want or expect them to be answered by God.

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 is way too much to give us lesser thing.

’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.

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.

When friends betray us, when darkness seems to win,

We know that pain reminds this heart that this is not our home.

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life, the rain, the storms, the hardest nights are your mercies in disguise.

With the song as my reference point, I looked into each medical event that happened in the past year. When our daughter caught COVID-19 in the Netherlands, she was all by herself. Being separated from her forced us to put our complete trust in God and pray intensely, in fact we even enlisted prayers on Facebook. Our daughter was asymptomatic throughout her quarantine period and was even provided a studio apartment that was so nice she started praying she could move into such a unit long term! We could not lift a finger, not even be there for her, but God was.

Before I had my bloody accident with a power grinder, my wife and countless people have all told me to use protective gear, let someone else do the work, etc. etc. But of course I was stubbornly deaf to all their appeals. That accident could have chopped off half of my right foot or I could have bled to death since I have been on blood thinners for years.

Again, I was mercifully spared, except for a one-month lay-off from walking, along with a P100,000-plus hospital bill as my “tuition fee” on work place safety. I also ended up buying various equipment that are much safer to use and was actually cheaper in total than my hospital bill. Rather than be angry over such “bad luck,” I was grateful to be spared and eventually “walk away,” still in one piece and all the wiser!

Before my youngest sister developed complications with her vision in New Zealand, we had long been suggesting that she find another job and prioritize her sense of wellness instead of being held hostage by her need for job security in a job that placed very little value on people or their comfort in the work place. She evaded and resisted while constantly expressing her unhappiness at work for years.

Her security blanket had turned into a chain without her even realizing it. The vision problem “forced” her to quit and all her attention was on not losing her sight and staying mentally healthy. She is now much better and spends more time reconnecting with family members and friends and looks forward to new things in life. What the devil meant for evil, God used for her good.

My other sister who “had” breast cancer also discovered that such an unfortunate situation can be God’s way of forcing us into a time out. For most of her married life, my sister has been the loving daughter, loving wife, mother hen to so many athletes and “strays.”

Professionally she was a flight attendant serving on many flights with PAL. She was constantly orchestrating and organizing things for people and events. She reminds me of the biblical Martha who was preoccupied with domestic preparations than hanging onto the words of Jesus.

When Marissa was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to go through a barrage of tests and treatments as well as the sequential trauma and depression, she was forced to sit on the sidelines and was “forced” to hand over control to so many people who stepped up to take over and take care of her. We can still bless others by allowing them to bless us.

Last but not the least, a 12-hour double surgery that cost nearly a million will cause you so much pain in your guts as well as your pocket. But our pre-occupation with costs and fear of pain oftentimes preclude the worse alternative; death and a funeral are just as expensive and the loss for others is permanent.

Let us be grateful and thankful for “Blessings” – even if God works in mysterious ways.

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