Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. Luke 22:43 (NKJV)

Often when we read about Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, we focus on His extreme sorrow. We hone in on how He prayed to the Father three times to take this cup from Me, each time more intense than the last.

We focus on the loneliness He must have felt as His closest friends slept while He was in agony. We might even think about how He felt knowing He was being betrayed—or the trepidation He may have felt about the journey that lay before Him.

And while all of this is true, we may miss the blessings in the passage.

Blessings? Yes, blessings. Jesus was strengthened and prepared for His journey. God sent an angel to strengthen Him, and He had the opportunity to align Himself with God’s plan as He spoke the words, Thy will be done.

The same is true for us.

During one of the most painful seasons of my life, I found myself desperately praying for God to intervene in circumstances I could not fix. His response was that I see the person the way He saw them.

God challenged me to see them as His child—fully forgiven and fully loved. It didn’t matter what they did or didn’t do; God loved them simply because they were His. My guess is that most of us love our children the same way. We love them because they are ours.

God gave me the opportunity to surrender and align myself with His will. He gave me the opportunity to accept the call to love unconditionally—the way Jesus loves me. And He gave me the strength to keep moving forward, to go through it with grace.

God may not remove the obstacle. He may not change the situation. But He will provide us with the strength to endure.