You're So Blessed

This week, we are grateful for this beautiful guest post by our dear friend and Back to Basics co-creator, Olympia Rusu. Click HERE to read more of her edifying reflections! 

Blessed. You’re so blessed. Bless your heart.

They’re words in society that can seem to mean nothing and so much at the same time.

Especially living the South, phrases like “God bless you” and “bless your heart” have varying meanings. I’ve learned that they can mean almost anything depending on who is saying it. More often than not, though, I think we use the word blessed as a synonym for happy, comfortable, successful, or fortunate. We call someone blessed when life seems to be going well and everything appears to be falling into place.

In our world of paradoxes, I’ve often found that the opposite is most true. Scripture doesn’t define blessing this way, and my own life has repeatedly confirmed it. Sure I might feel blessed when life is good and everything seems easy. But what I’ve learned is

“Blessed” isn’t a feeling.

The Beatitudes prove it.

• Blessed are those who mourn.
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
• Blessed are the meek.
• Blessed are the peacemakers.
• Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

None of those are happy feelings and in fact they are quite uncomfortable and painful.

• To mourn means something cut deep into your soul, causing grief.
• To thirst for righteousness means most things in the world are going to resist or isolate you.
• To be meek means there are situations where you have to fight to choose discernment and self-control.
• To be a peacemaker means there is conflict and you choose not to “win”.
• To be persecuted means that people around you hate you enough to damage you.

What blessing does mean, however, is that God is near.

This means everything for the Christian. The greatest gift God can give us is not comfort, prosperity, or even physical health. It is Himself, whom we are entirely unworthy of receiving. It means that Christ identifies himself with you. We know it because Jesus personally said that He is near to the broken, the poor, the hurting, and the grieving.

The other morning I was laying down on the couch, fighting off a headache from another blood plasma infusion plus IV magnesium which involves an intense burning sensation when it’s not diluted.

My body depleted, nothing in my mind, and Ephraim came over to me and said, “you are so blessed.”

I gave a soft chuckle and replied, “I don’t feel blessed.”

This got me thinking about what blessings really are.

When he said, “you are so blessed,” he meant it with a sincere understanding that suffering can shape a person’s life in ways we don’t always recognize in the moment. Suffering, in the Christian sense, can draw us closer to Jesus as He transforms it into something good as we walk through it faithfully. I’ve heard Orthodox Christians tell me the same thing before, always with deep faith and love, as if to say that God is especially near in seasons when life feels heavy. And I believe that—not only in my own experience, but in the ordinary struggles that mark every life: grief, uncertainty, waiting, and conflict.

What Blessing Really Means

Blessings from God don’t always look like comfort or joy or the American dream. Sometimes they do. But when they don’t, we’re no less loved nor are we more rewarded because something was easy and comfortable. When I faithfully endure any moment with patience and a quiet heart, I am blessed. To be clear,

The blessing wasn’t the headache.

The blessing wasn’t the infusion.

The blessing wasn’t the suffering itself.

The blessing was God’s presence in it.

So perhaps blessings are not getting everything we want, but rather being drawn closer to Christ through whatever He allows. As St. Paisios of Mount Athos said, “God allows trials according to our strength, not to destroy us, but to help us grow.” Trials become the soil where virtue grows. In enduring them faithfully, virtues like patience, humility, and a quiet trusting heart take root like tiny sprouts that, in time, bloom into flowers. Yet even these are not the greatest blessing. The greatest blessing is that God Himself is there, tending the garden. As St. Isaac the Syrian wrote, “Endure trials with patience, and God will reveal His mercy.” His presence and mercy are our true treasures.