Blessings

Today I have decided to share with you some things from the life of Laura Story, the author of the No. 1 worship hit "Indescribable" recorded in 2004 by Chris Tomlin. The following year she married a handsome athlete named Martin Elvington and began working in music and women's ministry at the 4,000-member Perimeter Church in Atlanta. After signing an artist deal with the INO Records, her 2008 national debut won a Dove Award for Inspirational Album and earned Laura two consecutive nominations for Female Vocalist of the Year, all blessings, indeed. But amidst that success a brain tumor hospitalized her husband in 2006. The faith Story sang about was put through the unexpected fires of fear and loneliness; most young newlyweds don't imagine being kept alive at one point by breathing machines or having to find their way through significant postoperative vision and memory loss. "Life is filled with things you don't expect, but the Bible tells us to respond by trusting God and continuing to worship him," Story begins. "Martin hasn't received complete healing and that can be hard at times when we view God as all-powerful and all-loving. But here we are now saying, 'Yes, this is how faith works.' God has proven to be faithful. We have been truly blessed out of a circumstance that at first didn't seem like much of a blessing at all." And these experiences enabled her to write the following words.

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 us way too much to give us lesser things

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

And 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.

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

And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise.

When friends betray us

When darkness seems to win

We know the pain reminds this heart

That this is not, this is not our home

It's not our home.

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

And what if a thousand sleepless nights

Are what it takes to know You're near

What if my greatest disappointments

Or the aching of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy

And what if trials of this life

The rain, the storms, the hardest nights

Are Your mercies in disguise.