Every blessing You pour out
I’ll turn back to praise
And when the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord”

Tree63, “Blessed Be Your Name“

I sat down to write an entry in my journal one morning several years ago.  As I was typing this title, a song came on the radio with the above lyrics. “Bless,” “blessing,” and “blessed” popping up all at the same time…hmmm… 

I didn’t have anything exciting planned for the day that would make me think these words were fitting.  No new car or vacation planned that would seem like a blessing.  I wasn’t even sure why I had started typing those words for the title; they just flowed out of my fingers.

What we normally think being blessed looks like
God going ahead of me

My husband had taken the morning off of work that day so I planned to run errands.  Just a few weeks after Cody’s epilepsy diagnosis, I was looking forward to getting out of the house and thinking about something else.  I packed three boxes of outgrown clothes and a breakfast bar and stools into the back of my car to donate and grabbed my list of “wants” – a little shopping therapy sounded good. 

Because it was near my other shopping, I decided to go to Savers instead of Goodwill where I always dropped off donations.  I helped the worker unload everything and then took the receipt from him. 

As I started walking back to my car, the man followed me to thank me with these words:

“Your donation helps the Epilepsy Foundation and Disabled Vets of America.” 

I tried to say, “My son was just diagnosed with epilepsy!” but started to get choked up, so I simply said, “That’s wonderful, thank you!“

I drove away with tears in my eyes and an overwhelming sense of God having met me there.  I had been frequently aware of God showing up in the preceding weeks of diagnosis and chaos, blessing me not with things or an easy resolution to Cody’s seizures, but with His presence. 

Here I was simply clearing out my house of the things I no longer used and Cody couldn’t wear anymore, things that someone else needed, and God blessed me by letting me know He was already there too!  I wasn’t expecting Him there.  I donated those items thinking it was to help others, to bless others.  While the employee thanked me that day, I drove out of there thanking God.  How odd is that?  Before I was even done doing something I thought was a blessing for someone else, He was pouring out blessings on me: “I am here, Carrie.”

Pouring out blessings

Three days ago, I attended the funeral for my great uncle Phil.  We were able to visit him in person two weeks ago, the first in-person visit in a year.  One week later, he died, and two weeks after our visit, I went to his funeral, grateful that I had been able to see him one last time and grateful that, a year into social distancing, 23 of us were actually able to assemble, masked and spread out but in-person, to grieve.

I decided to join the immediate family going to the cemetery, to show my support for them.  To bless them by being there for them.  And then – yet again – God blessed me.

As we began the procession, I noticed that four oncoming cars across the median pulled over onto the shoulder.  I’m not talking about cars in our lane; these were drivers approaching us from the opposite direction with no need to get out of our way.  Stunned, I realized it was out of respect for the funeral procession.  I’m not sure if I have just missed noticing this in the past or if this was maybe an older tradition being resurrected.  For six miles, car after car in the oncoming lane pulled over as they saw us approaching. It was one of the most moving things I have ever experienced.

On a pre-covid Saturday morning, would they have done that in the rush of “normal” life or would they have zipped right past the hearse and its string of mourners?  There were probably a dozen cars in the procession and almost everyone who pulled over waited until we all had passed.

Most fully present 

I wonder if being forced to slow down in the last year has made us more aware of what is actually going on around us.  Instead of rushing through our day, running here and there…we can’t.  For a year, we haven’t been able to run errands.  Huge to-do lists which included trying to fit grocery shopping in among the kids’ sports practices or all-day tournaments disappeared.  We have had to move more slowly because there just aren’t as many places where we’ve been able to go. 

We can now stop, mentally, see a line of cars with flags on their roofs, and realize there are real people in those cars, people who are mourning.  As the drivers in the oncoming cars, we can maybe even feel that grief, as the griefs we’ve experienced over the last year are raw and present too.  I wonder if we have been given a new way of seeing, a chance to stop and breathe.  A new appreciation for life and a new respect for death.

God has blessed me in epilepsy.  God has blessed me in mourning.  In both circumstances, God has blessed me by being with me in those circumstances.

Several years ago, God told me, “I will always bless you more than you could imagine.”  My human brain just can’t imagine God next to me all day long. But I can see car after car pull over out of respect for the life lost and in shared grief with those left behind.  I can see the blessing of their joining me in my sorrow.  Their blessing of simply offering their presence.

Be sure to taste the moment to the full. The Lord reveals himself to you where you are most fully present.

Henri Nouwen