Blessings in disguise are not always in disguise

​Recently, a dear friend told me about a 'blessing in disguise' in her life. It got me wondering, where did that notion ever come from, this idea of blessings wearing disguises.

Turns out it can be traced back to the English poet James Hervey who in 1746 wrote Reflections on a Flower-Garden. In the piece, he wrote, "A seeming evil, but a real good; a blessing in disguise."

A blessing in disguise is this idea that what feels like evil or a hardship in this moment is actually going to end up serving some goodness in our life.

It's a blessing in disguise.

I've been pondering lately, what if we just got good at seeing the blessing before the disguise is removed? Is the secret to a content life seeing all blessings and no disguises?

That sounds challenging. But the reality is I can look back on every hardship in my life, every single one of them, and connect it to some current good in my life.

Good doesn't always FEEL good, so maybe sometimes it's hard to imagine the good in a hard moment. Maybe it's hard to look back and find it.

But growth is good. Resilience is good. Becoming more empathetic and compassionate and loving is good. Becoming more emotionally available is good. All goods that often come from things that didn't feel so good.

Sometimes we miss blessings because they don't necessarily feel like blessings. But what if hardships - what if life in general - isn't about getting to a place where life always feels good. What if it's about getting to a place of believing that everything we experience is pointing us to an ultimate good?

Sometimes the disguise on a blessing is 'this sucks' or 'I wouldn't choose this moment for my life.'

But sometimes 'this sucks' is preparation. What sucks the life out of you now is often a source of future life.

Sometimes 'I wouldn't choose this moment for my life' is preparation for a moment you aren't in this moment wise enough to choose for your life.

But you will be.

Maybe this week don't imagine the blessing in disguise. Just see the blessing.

Maybe this week don't imagine what feels hard as something preparing you for a blessing. Go ahead and claim it as a blessing now, long before the disguise is ever removed.