My November book recommendation is “When God Doesn’t Fix it.” By Laura Story. The tagline on her books reads: Lessons You Never Wanted to Learn, Truths you Can’t Live Without.

I don’t know if you have heard of her before but she wrote the song, “Blessings”.  It is a beautiful song and the chorus goes,

“Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops,

What if Your healing comes through tears,

What if the thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near

What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise.”

She wrote this song in the middle of her struggle.  You see her life took an unexpected turn when her husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor and after his surgery, he lost his short term memory.  In the book, she walks us through her own story; she is very vulnerable and authentic which allows you to truly connect to her.  But she does something else in the book that I love, she encourages us in the middle of our own struggles, when our lives have taken unexpected turns. 

There are so many great things to share about this book so I will just choose 2 of them. First of all, she ends each chapter with a myth and then the truth!  I found these to be very powerful.  Here are some my favorites:

“Myth: The strength of my faith is based on how strongly I believe

Truth: The strength of my faith is based on the strength of my God!”

“Myth: God can only use my story when there is a happy ending.

Truth: God can use my story when I trust Him in the journey!”

“Myth: Contentment begins with understanding why

Truth: Contentment begins with asking How God might use this for His Glory!”

These myths vs. truths were so powerful and really challenged me.  I hope they encourage you too!

The second thing that I want to share from the book is how God wants you to share your story, not just the highs but the lows too.  We are all comfortable sharing our highlights just look on Facebook and you can see them but it is a lot harder to share our lowlights.  Some of you may be struggling with infertility, or maybe you are in the middle of a broken relationship with a friend or a family member, or maybe you have just lost a loved one.  You can be struggling financially or have a teenager/ young adult that is making poor choices or just went through a divorce like me.  All of us have something in our lives that is difficult.  In this book, Laura says, “The reason God wants me to tell my story isn’t because he wants me to be embarrassed talking about my lowlights or bragging about my highlights.   He wants me to tell my story because my story points to Jesus.”   I just love that!  This has been such a huge and freeing thing for me when my life took an unexpected turn.  My story can still be used by God and so can yours!  I love it when Laura says, “God is the hero of my broken story.  It is how God used the things that happened to me to draw me closer to him. That’s why he wants you to share your highs and lows too. It can be used to bring others closer to him.”  Such amazing truth!

I don’t know where you are right now- whether you are in the middle of the rainstorm or just came out of it or maybe a storm is on the horizon!  I highly recommend this book to you.  I truly believe that our relationship with God grows in such a beautiful way during our storms and trials in our life.  This is what I think her song, “Blessings” is all about.  So I want to share her song with you today; it is truly beautiful!  Below are the lyrics as well as a link so you can listen to it! 

Let me end with a prayer:

God, Thank You that Your blessings can come through raindrops and that Your healing can come through tears!  I pray healing and comfort over anyone hurting right now; anyone in the middle of the rain and not sure why they are in this unexpected turn in their life. I pray that they feel your comfort and love right now!  I pray that they draw closer to you during this hard time because You are faithful!  In Jesus Name, Amen

Love, Jodi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CSVqHcdhXQ

“Blessings” Lyrics

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 is way too much to give us lesser things 

(Chorus)

‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops 

What if Your healing comes through tears 

What if the 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 

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 

And all the while, You hear each desperate plea 

And long that we’d have faith to believe 

Chorus

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 

Chorus

What if my greatest disappointments 

Or the aching of this life 

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

What if trials of this life 

The rain, the storms, the hardest nights 

Are your mercies in disguise

If you want to learn more about Jodi, check out her blog: heartbreaktostrength.wordpress.com