The person who walks into our life by surprise when we’re caught up in feelings for someone else, the job we land in the wake of the one we didn’t get, the happiness we find after a different door closes in our face – sometimes the greatest gift is the one we didn’t know we needed.

The unexpected arms of a friend around our shoulders when we feel alone, the compliment from a stranger in a moment of darkness, the opportunity we never planned for, but has shaped the entirety of our lives from this moment on – these are sometimes the greatest gifts.

When we prayed, begged, and hoped with all our might and watched life crumble beneath us, the greatest gift is sometimes the one we receive when we thought God wasn’t listening. When we shook our fists at the sky, pleading with God to hear our cries. When we felt abandoned, as if He had abandoned us just when we needed Him the most.

But then, out of nowhere, blessings bloom – blessings we never expected, prayed for, or saw coming. Thegreatest gift is sometimes the one God gives us when we are too busy praying for something else.

Most of the time, we pray for specific things or people. We wanted life to bend to our will; we wanted everything to go according to our plans. We pray selfishly, only seeing what is right in front of us and not what is to come.

But God sees beyond our limited perspective. He can see how our lives will shape, grow, and change. He hears our prayers. But prayers are not wishes, and He is not a genie who grants them whenever we want. God hears every hope we have, but He moves us in accordance with His perfect will. And it’s not always that He ignores what we want, but that He shapes our future to be far better than we imagined.

It’s not that He is blind to our suffering or the people we long to love. It’s not that He ignores the emotions coursing through our veins, the burdens we long to lift, the agony we long to end.

The truth is that He hears, sees, cares, and knows what we require far better than we do. An unanswered prayer can be the greatest blessing of all. Because it changes our course, because it demonstrates genuine love, and because it forces us to be somewhere, someone else in the aftermath of pain. Because it teaches us to let go, to stand up, and to move forward. Because it breaks us, rebuilds us, and strengthens us in ways we couldn’t do on our own.

Sometimes an unanswered prayer allows His plan to be realized – for people to grow closer to Him, for life to unfold as it should, for hearts to hurt so that they can heal, for loved ones to leave in order for all to see His truth and unending love. Sometimes an unanswered prayer brings hope, light, and truth that we are blind to when we are caught up in wishing for something else.

We pray and pray, and still people leave, our hearts break, illness, death, and pain occur all around us, and all we see is what we didn’t get, what God didn’t give us. Until one day, all of a sudden, we take a deep breath and inhale in hope. We take in fresh blessings. We breathe in peace and comprehend His will.

And we see that what wasn’t answered has led us to places far greater than before, has provided us with exactly what we needed, has shaped, built, and strengthened our faith in ourselves and in Him. And we move forward, knowing that what we didn’t get is the best gift of all.

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