All About Perspective

This morning I’m thinking about perspective. How you choose to view events or circumstances in your life certainly has a huge impact on your character. It has on mine anyway.

For most of my life I have been a “glass half empty” kind of person. I wouldn’t say that if you met me you’d automatically think I’m negative, because I don’t think that is the case. However, when a situation presents itself….I tended, in the past, to automatically jump to the negative conclusion. I’m also a worrier and I think these two unbecoming traits go hand in hand. This morning though as I was sitting on the porch drinking my tea, I was reflecting on the past few years. To say that have been eventful would be an understatement! I left a church community that I had been a part of for over 20 years, my husband decided I was no longer wife material, I had to find a job and begin supporting myself and my children, I had to find a new place to live…you get the idea. It has been tumultuous. I spent countless sleepless nights praying, crying and grieving over each of those circumstances only to look back from this new vantage point and see how God has worked every one of those situations out in an amazing way.

• My relationship with God has grown and changed so much that it is like comparing night and day. In my previous church community I lost sight of the Lord somehow and began worshipping the church. I’ve never longed to pray, read and just be still with God like I do now.
• I am now divorced. I hate that. I’m completely an advocate of working things out. And yet I … I like myself better now. I’d lost myself along the way trying to please someone else. I became an accessory to my husband. A very good friend of mine told me that although he knew I didn’t want to be divorced he likes me better now. Me too.
• I LOVED being a stay at home mom. Now I am a single working mom. Life is VERY busy!! But my job has helped me to gain confidence that I needed.
• I had to move out of my house …and I was terrified at where my kids and I would end up. God provided, through an amazing friend, a little house sitting on the back corner of 10 acres of property. It is a little slice of heaven in suburbia.

The bottom line is that I’m closer to God, my kids and my friends and have gained a stronger character along the way. Perspective. I am learning that whatever life hands me, God can work good in it. The circumstances aren’t good, but the outcome can be. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” I always believed this verse, but now I understand it. God has changed my perspective. And that glass…it’s half full.