Undisguised Blessings

I often hear people saying that something is a "blessing in disguise." Which means, usually, that the situation really sucks and they are hoping that there is some way you can pull a beneficial meaning from it. And sometimes you can... and sometimes.... you just nod and tell the person thanks, but you end up crying later.
It seems that much less often, we are given undisguised blessings. I said "seems" because we aren't actually given obvious blessings less often - we just don't view as many things as blessings because we are human, and occasionally ungrateful. I actually hear about people being blessed in amazing ways, but outside of the normal "you prayed for that job and you got it" type of blessing, I don't get the outrageous *Oh-My-Gosh-That-Just-Happened* blessings happening to me.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the typical blessings are not appreciated. They are just more anticipated. I have all the faith in the world that when we need something feasible, it will happen for us. It always does, and the Lord does not disappoint. Being honest, though, I don't really anticipate the huge slap in the face blessings that people don't even believe when you tell them. In fact, this is possibly the first time it has happened to me.

We are still motel-bound. I think the hardest part is that we have to go out each day and try to get some type of exercise, otherwise the kids will go crazy. There are literally two options. We can go to McDonald's and let the kids play in the play place, which also means walking half a mile each way. Which is a good thing.
Or we can go walk around. Like, walk around Fred Meyer for three hours, or walk around the mall, which only takes twenty minutes.
That's about it. We can go to the park, but the weather has been terrible.
The other hard part is that we have to get a motel driver to take us anywhere. We feel like a huge inconvenience, and we have to often wait twenty minutes or more for the driver, and we have to ride with other people and try to cram into the vehicle. Overall it's just a highly unpleasant experience and keeps us from going where we want when we want. The other downfall is that while I can use the walking, it is starting to become too painful to walk long distances and sometimes I am so tired and achy that I can barely make it back to our room.

The other day, we were at McDonald's (big surprise) and a completely random stranger walked up to us. He asked if we needed a car to use while we are in Juneau.

We both just kind of stared at him, and he went on to say that he had seen us walking. He said he also has several young kids and a wife who is expecting. He wanted us to use his Suburban while we are in Juneau, and just call him to return it when we are going home.

We were speechless and if I remember correctly, we both just laughed stupidly and then asked, for the third time, "Dude are you serious?"
Now that I think about it, I am embarrassed at how dumb we probably looked.

As of now, we have a vehicle to get us around, and the freedom of being able to stay out later or make trips to the store if we need something in a hurry. It is truly a huge blessing and a weight off our shoulders.

As if that weren't enough, he came back and put four carseats in the car while we were sleeping - three for the older kids and one infant seat for the baby. We hadn't brought any carseats because we didn't have a car to drive while we were here anyways, but here they appeared out of thin air.

I think the funny thing is, I never thought to myself that we would never be blessed with a car while we were in Juneau. I just assumed that walking would be find and we would make due with what we had. When this fell into our laps, obviously a huge blessing from the Lord, we were extremely aware of how much this was helping us out in a time of need.

It really makes me realize how, even though we begin to expect some of the "smaller" blessings, nothing is too big for God. Nothing is impossible and nothing should be considered out of reach. You never know when that huge blessing will come out of nowhere.



Salvation belongs to the Lord; May Your blessing be upon Your people. Psalm 3: 8


For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous; with favor You will surround him as with a shield. Psalm 5: 12



From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.
 John 1:16 

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