On a sunny afternoon last week, on a run through a beautiful neighborhood, I noticed a shimmering Cadillac with a vanity plate that said “Blessed.”   Now, as a disclaimer, I have absolutely no idea what the thinking or personal meaning of this plate is for the owner. But for illustration purposes, I thought it summed up perfectly what I have grown to dislike about the frequent use of the phrase “blessed.”  It has become a synonym for prosperity, health, and pleasure. Blessed in this context is the absence of pain. But what if one’s Cadillac gets totaled? What is the word for that?

I really had never thought deeply about how I often used the word “blessed” glibly until I learned about our daughter’s heart defect.   As we anticipated her arrival and breaking the big news to the world, I watched with anticipation and envy the Facebook newsfeed filling with birth announcements. I could not wait until we could join in with everyone else. “We are blessed with a beautiful, healthy baby girl.” But at 35 weeks, we found out we weren’t getting a healthy baby. She would be beautiful but not healthy. In the four weeks before her birth, I watched with envy of a different type as the “blessed with a healthy baby…” posts floated across the screen. My child’s birth announcement would read very differently:

Rosalind has arrived! 

We are still needing prayer specifically that the left ventricle pumps more blood & that the right intake valve strengthens. We have more tests scheduled for tomorrow & will update with any pertinent news.

This afternoon, a baby in our community passed away. We prayed for healing, but the Lord chose to say no. The parents tonight are mourning the loss of their first child after making the agonizing choice to take her off life support. Are they blessed?

Whenever I tell our story, I think about stories like this other family. After listing all the fantastic things that happened to us, all the good results, as I start to say we have been very blessed, or “God has been faithful,” I stop. These are true statements. But the context I am putting them in implies that because something good has happened, we have been blessed; He has been faithful. Our experience of good fortune becomes a litmus test of His character. Health/recovery = loved by God. Illness/death…?  We don’t know what to put on the other side of that equation. Or where we put God.

Matthew 5:1-4 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them.  He said… Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.“

I have thought much more about that passage since our daughter’s birth. In our darkest hours, when we didn’t know what our outcome would be, I felt Him closer than I ever knew I could. I know that He is meeting our friends in the quietness of their home tonight, in the stillness of their nursery that once held such hope. They are blessed. She was a blessing. We are blessed in Rosalind’s story.

So, do I think it is wrong to say we have been blessed when something good has happened? No. But I think we need to spend more time pondering the blank space in our minds when we think about responding to sorrow.

We want a microwave faith, a 1 minute- done understanding of suffering and pain. At least I know I desperately want to make it all that simple. Boil it down to black and white. We want to simplify the good things into blessings and the bad into curses. Too many Christians have tried to tie a bow around a nightmare and quote Romans 8:28 out of context to a friend whose heart is bleeding out. I know I am guilty of such feeble efforts to address pain.

I haven’t finished hashing out now when I feel comfortable saying “blessed,” but in the meantime, I am transitioning more into saying I am grateful. Gratitude for His presence in the midst of it all, be it when the Cadillac is safely parked on a quiet street or in a crash.