Some time ago, my eleven-year-old daughter came home from orchestra practice feeling absolutely crushed. She had been the first to arrive, and as the other students trickled in, not one chose to sit by her. She sat alone at the edge of the room—the only kid with an empty chair beside her.

She felt rejected. Invisible. Alone.

The next day, as I dropped her off, I gently encouraged her to try something different. “Hang back a little,” I said. “Let others sit down first, then choose to sit by someone you’d like to get to know. Find someone who might be having a bad day—and be the one to make a friend.”

I reminded her to keep a prayer in her heart and visualize herself surrounded by good friends. “Choosing to be confident and positive will make people want to be around you,” I told her.

So she agreed to shift her mindset. She went in with intention, prayed in her heart, and set out to have a better day.

But what happened next surprised us both…

When I picked her up from school, she was glowing—excited to share that she’d ended up sitting between two girls she’d been hoping to get to know better.

How did it happen?

Not at all how we thought it would.

She still arrived early, out of habit, and sat in her usual chair at the edge of the room. As others came in, the same old pattern started to repeat itself.

(That’s the power of subconscious habits, right?)

Then… the twist.

She spotted a spider on her music stand. Creeped out, she tried to flick it away with her folder, but it fell—right onto her leg. She jumped up, shook out her pants, and, unsure of where the spider landed, decided nope, that chair was no longer an option.

She moved.

That tiny disruption was just enough to push her out of her comfort zone—into a different seat, in a different part of the room. Not long after, one of the girls she’d wanted to connect with sat next to her. Then another filled the other seat.

Now here’s the beautiful part.

She told me she thought the answer to her prayer would come as an idea, or a burst of courage to go talk to someone. Instead… it showed up as a spider.

That moment was a micro-lesson in how God so often works. When we ask for things to change, He doesn’t always change things. Sometimes, He changes us. He nudges us—gently or not—out of our comfort zones and into new spaces where the blessings we’re asking for can finally reach us.

But here’s the catch: sometimes, we miss the blessing anyway—because we’re so focused on the discomfort, we don’t even see what it’s making room for.

If my daughter had been frustrated by having to move, or too shaken to notice who sat next to her, she might have completely missed the sweet answer waiting on either side.

Our response to the discomfort matters.

I’m proud of her for recognizing that the spider was the very thing that cleared the path for the thing she’d hoped for all along.

So I ask you, dear reader… what’s your spider?

What uncomfortable, inconvenient, even scary thing has shown up in your life—seemingly opposite to what you've been praying for?

It’s not random.

It’s not meaningless.

It’s there for a reason.

Hardships are often blessings in disguise. Pay attention to how they “move” you. Because sometimes the answer to your prayer doesn’t look like a miracle. Sometimes… it looks like a spider.

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