Perspective is Everything

If you're anything like me, too often, you can't see past the end of your nose.  Thoughts about my schedule, my stress, my opinions and my circumstances can tend rule the emotions of the day.  Sometimes I'm hit in the face with examples of how others are struggling and how ridiculously self-consumed I can be.  Just this evening, I pulled into the driveway with a rather gloomy attitude at the same time as my neighbor.  She is grieving the recent loss of her teenage son.   Other times, I seek out reminders to shake me out of a "blue funk".   Yesterday, I came home from school and looked through hundreds of photos from my time in Africa.  All of my students in Zambia go without electricity, running water (clean water for that matter), food and parental care each day, yet they are the most peaceful and hardworking people I will ever know.  I'm becoming convinced that perspective makes all the difference.  Many of us have very little of it. 

If you're in a season of raising babies or toddlers with little time to yourself for pampering or social interaction, you've likely heard from older moms how fleeting the time seems while looking back.  If you're adamantly pro-choice and fiercely protective of the woman's right to choose, you should talk to a loved one twenty years after having an abortion and walk through the dibelitating grief with her.  If you think conservative Christians are hateful bigots or you think liberal gay and lesbians are offensive and perverted, then you've likely never had a close loved one or relative fall into one of these two categories. I remember being in Zambia during a highly political season and being disgusted by some of the "issues" on endless media loop as I witnessed profound suffering for the first time in my life.  My perspective was altered drastically and I'm coming to realize I will never be the same again.

As a woman who has moved into her 40's with all the "hormonal fun" that goes along with being a female-- including daughters just beginning the journey (sorry, guys-- just the facts!), I'm increasingly grateful for the perspective I have as one who is IN Christ.  I'm convinced that he alone can overcome my pride and self-centeredness.   I continue longing for heaven and the return of Christ with growing expectation.  Until then, may he deepen my faith and sharpen my perspective as one who is humbly dependent upon divine grace and mercy.

"Come to me, all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest."  Matthew 11:28