Blessings in Disguise. Not.
One of my daughters recently gave me a card that said “I’m looking for a blessing that’s not in disguise”. It really made me stop and think how true that is.
I am so tired of ‘blessings in disguise’. I am so ready for a nice big fat blessing right out in the open. Blessings in disguise seem to be about good sportsmanship. But what a drag that can be. I am so tired of being reminded by a friend, when a romance goes down the tubes, of how lucky I am that I found out sooner than later what a turkey he was. Couldn’t he just have been nice and done the right things? Why am I lucky because he turned out to be a dud, just because marrying a dud would have been worse? And all the other big and little disappointments that pass under that heading. The jobs you don’t get (that would have turned out to be awful later), the deals that fall through, the houses or apartments you miss out on, the babies you lose that “weren’t meant to be”. All blessings in disguise, and you have to be grown up and gracious about it. Awww phooey. I don’t always want to be grown up and gracious about life’s disappointments.
So let’s have more blessings not in disguise, please—the kind that look like real blessings that you can actually celebrate and show off to your friends. I vote for that. Definitely!
More blessings NOT in disguise please!!! I like obvious blessings a whole lot better!
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I find it rather funny that you wrote this blog following the “age” blog. I’m right there with you. Again, when we lost our baby…everyone had their “it wasn’t meant to be” or “something was wrong with the child, you should be glad you didn’t have to care for it”…what the heck?! Why can’t things just be wonderful? Sometimes being a grown up really isn’t that much fun. I wish I had the innocence of a 6 year old when it’s okay to ask “why me?”. Thanks again for sharing this!
exactly..however, i am much of a person that likes blessings in disguise – obviously, i am the i-love-surpises kind of person..hahaha
God BLess…^^
Ah, this is sweet! I feel the tantrum. :d Would be lovely if we could have more of the smack-in-your-face blessings though.
This rings true in more ways than you know right now. My daughter works for a bank that was just closed and taken over by FDIC. She has, in the last two years had a divorce (cheating spouse). Learned about the expensive legal system, and now may lose her job. She is 27. She is fed up. She claims she has bad luck and is cursed. Even though I know better I still feel her pain. I am wondering, “What Gives”? How many lessons does she need? I hope blessings come her way and soon LOL!
I truly believe that blessing in disguise are mentioned that way because you should turn a bad situation into something good and forget about it. I recently went through a miscarriage in late July and I was devastated. I thought, ” Houw could this happen?” “What went wrong?” I reseached for hours trying to find a reason for losing my baby. But in the end, I was listening to Joel Osteen and he mentioned having a miscarriage and how people ask the question “why?” when something doesn’t go their way. I’ve learned that maybe God had another plan in store for my life and he wasn’t readu to give me babies yet. About a month after I had the miscarriage the father of my baby got arrested and I was thanking God a little because it was a “blessing in Disguise”. I would NEVER in a million years want to have a baby and the father is in and out of jail. I know that that’s like and it killed apart of my childhood. You really need to take a bad situation and turn it into something good. I believe that’s what blessing in disguise means. Obviously when it first happens you wonder what you did wrong, why couldn’t this person have been faithful, why did I have a miscarriage. But the truth is there is no answer for any of these questions. It’s better to turn the situation around and put it into God’s hands and let Him for it out. Quit asking the question why and stop pondering on your thoughts of things could have been better. Just let it go and except it the way it is. Think of it as a blessing and go on with life. Worrying about negative things that happen to you only makes the situation worse and it’s not gonna change anything by dwelling on it every single day of your life.
I’m a 5th grade teacher, so I can’t agree with you more. I keep asking myself some days, “was I a bad student in a previous life?” A teaching career in today’s public school system…whew! I’m always asking, “how and when is this going to pay off?” I always say it’s a blessing in disguise too. But, it sure would be nice to get outright blessings sometimes, and not have to be the weary old soul looking under the layers to find what the blessing is supposed to be. Maybe my blessing is that all the situations that occur at work give me a ton of material to work with in the genre I want to be a writer in (young adult/middle grades). I guess I won’t really see until whenever I get the time to write what I’m supposed to write.
Personally, I believe this discussion thread deals with two paths one can take, regarding what life offers. Somewhat like Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” we are faced with an event. Something happens to us. Do we see the glass as half full–or empty? No matter what decision we make about the glass, however, reality is the same: nothing changes in the glass–but perhaps something can change in ourselves.
Blessings do not have to be disguised in order that we don’t easily recognize them; we can often overlook them.
A very dear friend of mine was dying of cancer, and was at home and invited me to a game of chess. Unknown to me, it was to be ou last meeting. Leaving my house in order to drive to his home I noticed a sunlit leaf of the magnolia tree in my garden. The veins and different greens of the leaf (it was Fall, and colors were changing) were aesthetically pleasing. I plucked the leaf and took it with me.
I gave him the leaf and mentioned where I got it, and remarked that if one held it up to sunlight, it had remarkable patterns and colors. He agreed.
Later, after we had played a game of chess at his bed (he had it set up so he could stay in the living room and still feel his family), there was a very quiet pause in our communication. He seemed melancholic but then, he was probably very tired. He suddenly turned his head and looked at me and asked me what I thought about dying.
What does one say in such a moment? After a pause I said that one often hears that one is to live life to the fullest–as if each day would be one’s last. But I told him doing that would be impossible (I’m a psychologist, and such intensity isn’t possible all the time; we’re not wired for it.)
I mentioned that some would want to take a world trip. Others would want to visit all their friends. I suppose it’s our call on that.
“However,” I said, “there’s something to be said for enjoying the beauty of a leaf.
Perhaps, instead of wondering what presents are disguised in our lives, we should be seeing the presents we have, and recognize them for what they are.
I don’t know if you go back to you old posts. I was searching for some comfort because I recently had a miscarriage. Thank you for the honesty of this post. I have been trying to rationalize for days since finding out this wasn’t a “viable” pregnancy. I prayed from the second I found out I was pregnant for a healthy happy baby. Was this my ‘blessing’ that it apparently wasn’t and it took care of itself? I can’t say I feel that way. I don’t feel like being gracious, I just want to know where my miracle is.