Near Misses

Sunday afternoon my husband, my daughter Anna and I huddled together in our cellar with flashlights as we heard the low rumble of the tornado that skimmed by us just south of our house.  The sound lasted less than a minute but was distinctive.  When all seemed to be clear, we emerged from our shelter to find the house unscathed.  Only a few small limbs were down in the yard.  The tornado had missed us. Others were not so fortunate.  The cities of Lafayette and Kokomo were hit hard.  Luckily only property damage and no lives were lost.  But the devastation will takes months to repair and the emotional wounds, years to heal.

I’ve lived in the Midwest my whole life so I’m somewhat used to tornado drills but this was the closest I’ve ever come to one myself.  It was a “near miss.”  I’ve experienced numerous “near misses” over my lifetime.  The most harrowing involved another strong storm.  It was midnight when we heard a tremendously loud “crack” with a clap of thunder directly over us.  I knew immediately that we had been hit by lightning.  I looked all around the house but could not visibly see any damage.  After feeling satisfied that all was well, I went to bed. The following morning I just felt that something was wrong. My morning routine was usually to shower first then wake the kids for breakfast.  This morning however I first went down to the kitchen to check things out.  As I walked into the kitchen, I could hear a hissing sounds that was coming from the basement.  As soon as I opened the basement door I knew right away what it was. The smell of gas was strong.  I didn’t know it then but the lightning strike had ruptured the gas line as it entered the house.  The basement had filled with gas all night.  At that moment, all I knew was we had to get out of the house immediately.  I hastily woke the kids and we all walked the block down to my sister’s house in our pajamas with the dog in tow.

Shortly thereafter, the repairman from the gas company arrived and I met him in the driveway (still in my pj’s).  As we walked up the driveway, the gas indicator he carried started to sound.  He looked a little shocked and asked where the electric shut off was.  Luckily it was just in the side door to the garage and the gas shut off was just outside it.  When it was safe to re-enter the house, the repairman showed me the numerous holes in the gas line in the basement.  He said we were extremely lucky that the house did not blow up with the amount of gas that had collected.  If the water heater had started up it would have exploded!

If I had taken a shower first as I usually did, I probably wouldn’t be writing this today.  What was it or who was it that told me to go to the kitchen first?  It makes me shudder to think that the kids and I could have been gone in an instant.  Garrett looked at me afterward and said, “Mom, I guess God has more for us to do here.”  Yes, I guess He does!

A “near miss” like this and the close call with the tornado bring up so many questions I would like to ask God.  When tragedy strikes we ask “why me?”  But when it passes us by we ask, “why not me?”  I’m still here while others were not so fortunate.  I’m thankful and blessed certainly but is there something more You want me to do, Lord?

I don’t claim to understand God’s ways any more than anyone else.  There are mysteries that will not be answered until we are face to face with our Creator.  But I do believe that God is in control and His plan is perfect.  I can’t see it now but every struggle, every tragedy and every blessed “near miss” happens as a part of His great plan.  Anymore I don’t ask God “why” but I ask “what are You trying to reveal to me through this experience?”  Every step of the way, I am being refined with fire, purified as gold to remove all the impurities in my life.  This is a painful but necessary process.

As Thanksgiving is coming near, I am thankful for all the blessings I have been given.  The house not being destroyed by the tornado is good but when I really look at what is important, it is nothing.  Our relationships with people and with God are the only thing that matters when all else is gone.  Love alone remains.

Thank you Lord for Your love and all those I love and who love me here on earth and all those with you in heaven.  Amen!

Persist Without Exception

I imagine that we all read sometime in our childhood the Aesop’s Fable, “The Tortoise and the Hare.”  We consciously cheered

on the underdog tortoise as he slowly plods on to beat the overconfident hare.  But was the tortoise really an underdog?  He may have appeared to be on the outside but inside he had a quality the hare never possessed that gave him the advantage all along: PERSISTENCE.

Persistence is the inner fortitude to keep going no matter what.  It is the steel of a decision made that will be followed through until the end.  The tortoise had his eyes set on the finish line while the hare was distracted by everything else around him.  Paul encouraged the early Christian church in the letter to the Hebrews to keep their eyes focused.  “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy set before Him endured the cross…” So persistence involves a decision to move forward plus a determined focus on the goal.

How many dreams have been forfeited because in our minds we thought we couldn’t attain it?  It was really a self-filling prophecy.  We made excuses why we never took the first step toward the dream. “I’m not smart enough.  I don’t have the money it would take.  I have too many other responsibilities.”  The world is full of people weighed down by the burden of “not enough” thinking.  If they do start moving toward their dream, they don’t have the fortitude to continue if they are met by criticism or roadblocks.  They feel justified in saying, “Well I tried but it just didn’t work out.”  They settle for mediocrity.

Shadrach had many times that he experienced giant setbacks in his quest to become a doctor.  He had the innate ability within him to accomplish this goal but everything around him seemed to be against it.  He fled out of Liberia numerous times avoiding resurgences of the civil war.  But he kept his eye on the goal, never giving up.  He was discouraged but not overcome with defeat.  All the time, God was in the background, setting circumstances up for Shadrach to achieve his goal. It wasn’t in the way he imagined.  He had to navigate over and around many road blocks but he did it.  He persisted without exception.

Andy Andrews has written a book called “The Travelers Gift.”  It is a fictional story of a man who goes back in time to meet 7 people who had great accomplishments or were exceptionally admired for their life.  He developed 7 qualities that made these people great that he calls the 7 decisions. Of the 7 decisions, Andy notes that the decision to persist without exception is the most important.  All the other decisions hinge upon this decision.  The 7 decisions are as follows:  The Responsible Decision (The Buck Stops Here), The Guided Decision (I Will Seek Wisdom), The Active Decision (I Am a Person of Action), The Certain Decision (I Have a Decided Heart), The Joyful Decision (Today, I Will Choose To Be Happy), The Compassionate Decision (I Will Greet This Day With a Spirit of Forgiveness), and last but certainly not least The Persistent Decision (I Will Persist Without Exception).

There may be many who are smarter, stronger, wealthier, or more beautiful than you.  But if you have sought wisdom and made an educated decision to follow a certain dream, then move toward that goal with action.  Don’t sit still.  Don’t stop. Persist without exception.  Be the tortoise and win the race.

Reminded of our humanity

My daughter Anna and I were fortunate to see an advanced screening of “The Book Thief” earlier this week.  I would highly recommend it.  We laughed, we cried, and I forgot to bring tissues!  The movie is set in a German neighborhood in the midst of Hitler’s reign of terror during WWII and follows one family struggling to live day-to-day through the madness.  In one scene, Hans (papa) tries to defend the character of a jewish neighbor as he is being drug away by the Gestapo.  He tells them that he is a good man and he has known him his whole life.  Hans is forced to tell the Gestapo his name and is thrown to the ground, unable to stop them. Afterward he says to his wife as she is cleaning his wounds, “What did I do?  What did I do?.”  What she said in response cut to the heart of the issue.  “What you did was remind them of their humanity.” The German people had lost sight of their humanity through Hitler’s influence.  They bought into the lies that the Jews (and anyone not of the Aryan race) were to blame for their country’s woes. They forgot that these people not long before were trusted friends and neighbors.  The Germans who realized that all this was very wrong, were too afraid to speak up for fear of the same fate as the Jews.  The country as a whole was pulled into the insanity.  A few brave souls stood out like the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He could have stayed in America, out of harms way, but instead chose to return to Germany to help the Resistance effort.  He was part of a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler.  He died in a concentration camp 2 weeks before the end of the war.  His classic book, “The Cost of Discipleship” has a large readership yet today.  Did he imagine that the cost of discipleship would be his life when he wrote it?

Jesus was constantly reminding people of their humanity in many of his parables.  When asked by  a lawyer what he was to do to gain eternal life, Jesus asked him what was written in the law.  He answered that he should love the Lord, his God was all his soul, heart, mind and strength and love his neighbor as himself.  Jesus confirmed that he was correct and told him to do this and he would live. But the man then asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”  Jesus never really answered his question but told him the story of the good Samaritan who helped a man injured by the side of the road after two other people considered “good” by their observance of the rules, passed him by.  Jesus turned the tables on the questioner by presenting a Samaritan who was despised by Jews as the hero in the story.  He then asked, “Who in the story was a neighbor to the injured man?”  The teacher of the law had to answer, “The one who showed him mercy.”  Jesus never said who our neighbor is but said that we should be a neighbor to anyone in need.  In other words, we should not judge who should be considered our neighbor because we are to be the neighbor. He told the lawyer, “Go and do likewise.”

It’s easy to pick and choose who we consider to be our neighbors.  Usually they are people who think and look just like us.  But if we had eyes to see like Jesus sees, we couldn’t help but see the humanity in everyone.  To do this we have to step out of the familiar to meet these neighbors who are different from ourselves where they are.  Most of us will never be asked to risk our lives to help a neighbor but would we step up to the task if such a situation arose? The people in Germany and the surrounding countries who did risk their lives hiding Jews were no different from you and me.  The family in “The Book Thief” was an ordinary family but they chose to hide a young Jewish man in their basement for 2 years. Their eyes could see the humanity of this brother and they could not turn their backs on him. In the Gospel of John, Jesus spoke of this kind of sacrifice, “…love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  Jesus did this for us. Now the challenge is, with His strength, to go and do likewise.

 

 

The Ultimate Sacrifice

I was touched deeply by a piece I read recently that was shared by a friend on Facebook about a fallen soldier who was escorted by his family and another soldier on his final journey home.  The family was honored by the flight staff and all the people on board the plane that carried the remains of their soldier.  This young man had made the ultimate sacrifice of his life to protect you and me. The story felt very personal  after being at Ft. Benning last week for Garrett’s graduation from basic training.  During all the ceremonies involved, I was struck by how much emphasis is placed on the higher calling embraced by the military. Garrett’s girlfriend, Lily, even asked me at one point whether the Army was a Christian organization.  I don’t think they could officially claim this.  It would not be “politically correct” to do so.  But it is obvious that those who make the decisions are spiritual people.  They are not afraid to call upon God openly at all their ceremonies.  I noticed that they were careful not to name Jesus.  They used a generic “God” term but the tone was definitely Christian.  Prior to this experience, I hadn’t really contemplated the very spiritual nature of military service.

Before Garrett made his decision to join the National Guard, he and I discussed why he felt called to do this.  He hopes while in the military to learn to fly helicopters since flying is a love of his life.  However his reasons for serving in the military are much deeper than that.  He truly wants to make a difference.  Protecting Americans and our freedom is not just a job, it’s a calling, a duty most of us don’t comprehend unless you are a soldier yourself.

I can relate somewhat, since medicine has a calling and a need for self-sacrifice as does the military.  Certain professions fill needs demanded by society and are more a calling than simply a job. As stated by Andrew Abbott in The System of Professions,” The sick want a cure, the sinner wants absolution, the accused wants exoneration, and the defenseless seek security.” When we had time to talk this last week, Garrett and I discussed the commonality of servanthood as an integral part of careers in Medicine, Pastoral Care, Law and the Military. For doctors, med school is like basic training in many ways.  Med students back in my day were called “Scut Dogs” and we were given the patient care jobs nobody wanted.  I spent 3 months at the VA in Indianapolis doing everything from starting IV’s, placing catheters, disimpacting patients and even transporting them to radiology.  I stayed overnight “on call” every 3rd night while I was in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy with my oldest child, Anna.  It was tough and I complained a lot to my family.  But my team took great care of our patients and they loved us for it.  Vets are a great group of patients.  They appreciate everything you do.  We came to love them too.  We all cried when one of our patients died of heart failure after a viral cardiomyopathy destroyed his heart.  He was only in his 30’s.  He needed a heart transplant but we were told then that the VA didn’t put patients on the transplant list.  That was 30 years ago.  I hope that policy has changed since then.  We were heart-broken ourselves when despite all our supportive efforts, his heart gave out one night on our call.  We felt powerless to help him but  in a real sense we did help him by truly caring.

I look back at this time of trial as a 3rd year med student as a period that strengthened me mentally and physically like a soldier.  I learned more in places like the VA than anywhere else.  I understand the sacrifice of time and energy that soldiers make.  But I’ve never been asked to put my life on the line for another. This is a dimension beyond what most of us are asked to do.  I could palpably feel this deep commitment by the soldiers during their graduation last week. They are there to protect us and give their lives doing it if they have to.  It’s a calling and a duty that is very spiritual and deep within every soldier or they wouldn’t be there.  I think the Soldier’s Creed says it all.

I Am an American Soldier

I am a Warrior and a member of a team.  I serve the people of

the United States and live the Army Values.

I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough,

trained and proficient in my warrior

tasks and drills.  I always maintain my arms,

my equipment, and myself.

I am an expert and I am a professional.

I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy

the enemies of the United States of America in

close combat.

I am a guardian of freedom and the American

way of life.

I am an American Soldier.

Powerful Beyond Belief

This morning on Facebook I read a post by David Whyte about honesty.  The article basically asserted that honesty is admitting where we are powerless and that we are often dishonest because we are fearful of loss.  The more I thought about this, it became clear to me that I absolutely disagree with this.  We must be honest about our circumstances but we are by no means helpless in them.  Honesty is being real and authentic with who we are.  We should not try deceive ourselves and others into believing we are someone who we are not.  However, I don’t believe we are powerless to change if we choose.  I tend to sit in the camp that we are more powerful than we think.  Every action we take affects another and can lead to a chain reaction of good or evil.  To not recognize this is dishonest.  We do not live in a vacuum.  Every decision matters.  Even indecision matters.  Often what we choose not to do can have far-reaching consequences.

I believe I am here to be a part of a bigger story.  I am a player on a team or an actor on a stage but the game/story is real life coached/directed by God.  We all play a part even if we don’t recognize it at the time.  Dishonesty is not acknowledging our role in the unfolding of history.  I am a powerful agent for good if I choose to be. This is a scary responsibility.  I don’t want to mess it up but the fact is, I will and I have.  It doesn’t mean that I am not redeemed to be an agent for good another day.

Peter fell hard when he denied Jesus the night he was taken to be crucified.  Yet he became one of Jesus’ most influential spokesman the rest of his life.  His recognition of his need for redemption made him powerful.  It freed him to be an agent for good.  He wasn’t mired down in the self-pity of helplessness.  After His resurrection, Jesus took Peter aside on the shores of the Sea of Galilee to commission him to care for and feed His sheep.  Jesus gave Peter the power to overcome his losses.  Jesus saw Peter’s potential.  He looked beyond who Peter was to who he could be.  Peter could have said, “but I’m only a fisherman.  What can I do?”  Instead he with the other disciples changed the world for good.

Don’t say to yourself, “I am only…”  Honesty says you are powerful.  Each one of us has the potential to change the world in our own sphere of influence.  However, if you choose to believe in your perceived helplessness, it will never happen.

Forgiveness to Restoration

A wise person once pointed out to me that forgiveness is a one way street but restoration must be two-way.  In other words, to forgive only take one party but in restoration both parties must be willing to lay down their arms and meet in the middle wherever that may be.  When we pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” we need to wrap our minds around what this really means.  In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus elaborated on this when he said that the Father forgives us in the same way we forgive others.  Forgiveness is not a suggestion but a mandate if we want to be forgiven ourselves.   In contrast, restoration, even though it is the preferred choice, is not always possible.  I can forgive someone without them even knowing it but we both have to choose to forgive for restoration.  We can’t force another to choose forgiveness.  We all have free will in this.  But isn’t it wonderful when it happens!

Recall in the Bible when Jacob was sweating bullets awaiting his inevitable reunion with his brother Esau?  Jacob had basically cheated his brother out of his birth right some 20 years before.  They hadn’t spoken since.  Does this sound like some family quarrels that end with brothers or sisters not speaking to each other for decades?  Often no one really even remembers what started the original rift but it goes on and on because no one wants to be the first to concede to the other.  Sometimes however, it is something big like the Jacob/Esau quarrel.  How do we get to restoration in a situation like this?

Take a lesson from Jacob.  You must reach out first and make contact with the other person.  As Jacob was traveling back to his homeland, he was afraid that Esau would be still angry enough to kill him and his whole family which had now grown to be quite large.  He sent ahead of his group, gifts in waves as peace offerings.  He did not approach Esau ready to fight but ready to reconcile.  It took a tremendous amount of humility, that wasn’t in Jacob’s character, to do this.  Yes, he was fearful of Esau who was much more powerful than he but he could have taken his family elsewhere and avoided Esau altogether but he didn’t.  I think that Jacob was tired of the separation and wanted to be back in his homeland.  It takes a lot of energy to keep up a quarrel with someone.  It wears you down after a while.  The same was probably true of Esau.  We’ll never know if the gift offerings made a difference in Esau’s choice to embrace his brother when they met or whether time had softened his heart.  It was probably a little of both.  Either way, peace was made between the brothers.  They weren’t buddies by any means after this but they weren’t enemies anymore either.  Their relationship was restored as best as it could be.

Jacob wrestled all night with God before he met with Esau the next morning.  Do I wrestle with God when what I need to do is not what I want to do?  Absolutely!  I want to be right.  I want to be vindicated for the wrong done to me.  I don’t want to concede anything.  I was the victim, not the perpetrator in the situation.  Why are you asking me to do this Lord?  You know what they did to me!  But then I remember the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side.  He chose to be the victim for me so that I might be forgiven and reconciled to God.  I need to do likewise.

This week I have been living in a Chalet in Ft. Benning Georgia with my ex-husband Dan, his wife Andi and Garrett’s girlfriend, Lily for Garrett’s graduation from Basic Training.  It sounds odd but it’s all good.  We have long ago resolved our differences after the divorce.  We’ve had a great time together.  What’s more important, harboring grudges or supporting our kids?  That’s a no brainer!  But many couples continue to fight decades after the divorce because they each fully believe that they were victims.  There comes a time to be humble enough to let go of the offenses for the greater good.  Besides,  look at the fun we would have missed out on.  It’s always better to celebrate together rather than insisting on a separate peace.  Reconciliation and restoration of relationship are God’s plan for us, if only we are willing to let it happen.

 

 

 

Honoring Those Who Serve to Protect Us

Garrett has been on my mind a lot recently.  In less than a week, I’ll be headed to Fort Benning, Georgia to see him graduate from boot camp.  I am so proud of the choice he made to serve his country in the National Guard.  I’m trying to find the words to fully express the gratitude that I feel toward all the people who put their lives on the line everyday to protect you and me.  It takes special people to do this who truly have servant hearts.  We need to honor them in all they do.  We need to support their families while they are gone and give them jobs when they return.  I think the separation from family and friends is the most difficult part for them.  I can hear it in Garrett’s letters how hard it is for him to be away.  Boot camp is the first separation of many.  Communication only by letters isn’t enough. I miss Garrett’s smiling face and his uplifting voice saying “How’s it going?” on the phone.  But as he would also say, “It’s all good!”

I don’t think any of us really understand the sacrifice made by these servant warriors unless we have lost a loved one who gave it all to protect us.  We have a long lineage of courageous heroes who have sacrificed their lives and livelihoods for our freedom.  So many in the world don’t have this.  I think of my Egyptian patients who can’t practice their faith freely in their country for fear of reprisals.  Their government does nothing to protect them.  They have fled to America for the freedom to believe and practice their faith as they choose.  They are pharmacists, engineers, and teachers who cannot use these skills here because they are not licensed in the US.  So they work places like Meijer stocking shelves so their children can have a chance to know freedom.  This is the very freedom we experience daily but don’t appreciate because we have never had it threatened personally.

Think about it for a moment.  Where would we be if there weren’t patriots who were willing to risk everything by fighting the British to start our own country, free from being ruled by a king?  I shudder to think what the world would be like if the Allies hadn’t won WWII.  Hitler’s reign of terror would have continued unchecked.  We have Al Qaeda terrorist who now wish to destroy us but the unstoppable American spirit rises up and says NO!  Our adversaries  may have leveled the twin towers but they are far from defeating us.

Yes, I will hug Garrett when I see him, tell him how proud I am of him and thank him for what he is doing. Please don’t forget to thank a soldier, policeman or fireman for serving to protect you today.  Just think where we would be without them.

Recognizing the creator in us all.

I find myself today on the last page of the journal I began almost 4 months ago.  After much pondering in Target as to which one I wanted, yesterday I purchased my next journal.  This may seem like a minor occurence but it’s really momentous for me.  You see, this is the first journal I have actually finished since I was in high school.  I have started and left many journals incomplete over the years mainly because I didn’t have enough time or rather, I didn’t set aside enough time to write.  What changed, you might ask?  Everything really.  I’ve had a total shift in how I visualize the rest of my life.  The things I thought were important earlier in my life have changed.  Not that what I focused on in the past was bad, but I now need to move on to a different stage of life.  I doubt that I would have made this move if I hadn’t been forced in a way.  Change is difficult and inertia keeps most of us where we are for fear of the unknown.  I am no different in this regard.  But I think God has another plan for me instead of continuing in the private practice of medicine for 10-15 more years.  He allowed me to paint myself into a work corner that was overwhelming then gave me a way out.  My present job is a gift.  I still get to interact with patients and other medical people but the pace is much more relaxed.  I have regained my sanity and my time.

I have been so time pressured for so long that initially I wasn’t sure what to do with the extra space I was given. I stumbled across a book through a series of God “coincidences”  that helped my focus.  It’s “The Early to Rise” book by Andy Traub who happens to be a native Hoosier and a Christian. At the time, he was hosting the podcasts for Andy Andrews but is now running his own business and writing full-time.  His book challenged me rise early and use this time to create.  His contention is that the early hours are our most productive time but most of us miss this opportunity because we are rushing out the door in the morning to our next scheduled activity.  I have shifted my schedule so I have an extra hour before I need to leave for work to read, to pray, and to write.  Initially I was concerned that I would be too tired to accomplish anything.  I really do have to force myself to start but once I do the ideas start to flow.  Very little of my journaling is anything close to profound but it helps me sort my thoughts through free writing.  This is a concept I learned from another great book, “Accidental Genius” by Mark Levy.  In free writing you just let your mind go and put on the page whatever thoughts you have without screening yourself for correct grammar.  You go back later to pull out the ideas you want to expand in further writing.  Through this method, a few good thoughts come out of my journal to become blog topics.  It’s really quite amazing.  I think this same method could apply to other forms of creativity.

Writing serves many purposes for me.  It helps me sift through ideas and thoughts to come to conclusions I wouldn’t have otherwise.  Writing holds me accountable since I feel more ownership of something I have written.  I lift prayers up in my journal and I can look back over them later to see God working to answer them.

Writing isn’t for everyone but I bet it would help many people even if they never shared a word with anyone else.  It is a creative outlet just like art.  We all have a bit of the “Creator” in us.  What other living creatures love to create but humans? The need to create is hard-wired into us.

So create! Do whatever your heart desires.  Writing is my creation but drawing has been in the past.  Who knows maybe I’ll start that again too.  How old was Grandma Moses when she started to paint?  I don’t know but I would guess much older than I am.  How do you choose what to create?  Look to whatever creative pastime you enjoyed as a child but gave up when you became an adult.  This will give you a place to start.  Carve out the time to begin creating whenever it works best for you.  Early morning just doesn’t work for some people. You might have to make some major changes for this to happen like I did.

I do often miss things from my past life, mainly patients who had become dear friends.  It is amazing though how many people I have run in to since I left practice.  We hug and generally cause a scene in whatever place we find each other.  Friends aren’t really lost even though we are separated by space and time.  I feel very strongly that God wants me to embrace this next stage of my life.  I am trying to watch and listen obediently so I can follow where He is leading. The journey has been very exciting so far.

 

Life Isn’t Easy

Here are some thoughts from my cousin, Mona that I thought needed to be shared.
___________________________________________________________________
Everyone will go through some hard times at some point (Just ask the Buddha). Life isn’t easy. Just something to think about…Did you know the people that are the strongest are usually the most sensitive? Did you know the people who exhibit the most kindness are the first to get mistreated? Did you know the ones who take care of others all the time are usually the ones who need it the most? Did you know the 3 hardest things to say are I love you, I’m sorry, and Help me. Sometimes just because a person looks happy, you have to look past their smile and see how much pain they may be in. To all my friends who are going through some issues right now–Let’s start an intention avalanche. We all need positive intentions right now. If I don’t see your name, I’ll understand. May I ask my friends wherever you might be, to kindly copy and paste this status for one hour to give a moment of support to all those who have family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know that someone cares. Do it for all of us, for nobody is immune. I hope to see this on the walls of all my friends just for moral support. I know some will!! I did it for a friend and you can too. You have to COPY & PASTE this one, NO SHARE BUTTONS. Let the positive intentions go viral…

Eternal Perspective

My grandmother used to tell us that she made it a point to never expect life to turn out good so when it didn’t, she wasn’t disappointed.  I don’t know if this attitude came from living through the Great Depression but it unfortunately colored her viewpoint for the rest of her life.  She definitely was a glass half empty kind of person and there was no convincing her otherwise.  If life took a good turn she was surprised.  In actuality, her life was quite interesting.  Grandma was a great story-teller and the wonderful tales of her youth are still burned in my memory.  The majority of life was really good for her but her low expectations got in the way of her seeing it.

I’ve seen it so often that perspective is limited by low expectations. But it’s also true that it is constrained by time.  If we see life as a journey with the bookends being birth and death then all our decisions are based on this time frame.  But what if we were to view life from an eternal perspective?  We certainly wouldn’t be hemmed in by time because the span of a lifetime would be miniscule compared to eternity.  Our earthy expectations would be greatly outweighed by heavenly expectations.  It would be freeing to see life this way.

This is what I think Jesus meant when He said, “You will know the truth and the truth with set you free.”   Believing the truth that Jesus died to wipe away the sin in our lives certainly does set us free.  However if we take that truth to heart, it will change our whole perspective on life.  We will see all of life from an eternal perspective.  Things that normally would bother us, don’t have meaning anymore.  They are minor bumps in the road when you see that life’s journey goes on forever.  This truth frees us to love more and live more.  We don’t have to worry about what we have or don’t have here on earth because we know that this earthly existence is not all there is.  We can be content with what blessings we do have here and be grateful.  Heaven will be so amazingly wonderful that the best earth has to offer will pale in comparison.

Now I know life can be hard and keeping an eternal perspective can be elusive when the worries of this world bear down on us.  I catch myself when stress levels are high, falling into a narrow view of my life again.  I give up my freedom for worry.  It’s hard not to be anxious when we remember 9/11 or see gunfire in places we thought were safe like our schools.  But remember the bigger picture. This is not all there is. There is an eternity of peace and safety where there will be no need for doctors because no one will be sick any more. I’m going to have to get a new job!  Maybe God will let me be a gardener in Heaven.  I would so enjoy tending flowers with the Master Gardener someday!  Yes, eternity will be lived out someday in heaven but it’s already begun right now here on earth if we can only have the eyes to see it. I wish I could have convinced my grandmother of this.  Life could have been so much richer for her if only she could have had an eternal perspective.