Words are powerful. Uniting. They shape our view of the world, ourselves, each other. They can shift our perspective.
We all want life to be fair. We want goodness to prevail and hard work to mean that life will be easier and ... that green grass on the other side of the fence that belongs to the people who don't appreciate it? We'd like that to be transplanted into the lawn of the person who spends all day feeding and watering the sparse looking grass in hopes of a fruitful harvest.
The plain and simple truth, if we take big lessons in life and strip them down to the bare essentials, is that we are tiny blips on a very big screen. Only God has the capacity to see all of it. He saw all that came before us and sees all that will come after us, and only He can know the role that each of us can play that will best serve Him and each other.
So, maybe life isn't ideal by our standards. By my standards. The whole living in isolation thing? I could do without it. The leaving the house wearing a mask thing? It’s getting old. Watching church from home? I miss my church community.
I have learned a lot about myself, my faith, my perspective. I have intentionally been praying and asking God to reveal what He needs from me and How I can best serve Him.
Because what I do know, is that nothing about my life is about me... it's about who He needs me to be. And how can I complain about that?
Oh, complaining can come so easily for all of us... the small house, the flat tire, the promotion that should have been mine and the grass that grows so fast I don't have the time to mow it... But what if the small house is so I am next to a neighbor who needs my help when her husband dies? Or my tire went flat when I was driving so it didn't happen when my teenage son was driving and he wouldn't have known what to do? Maybe the promotion would have been a dead end for me and next year a better opportunity will be waiting. And that lawn? Maybe it's the only exercise I do each week and is saving me from a heart attack. The point is, we don't know.
As far as I'm concerned, even those things that make me want to pull my hair out and scream "Why me?!?" are blessings in disguise. Blessings for me, or for someone else, or for a reason I can't even imagine.
But it doesn't really matter. Because it's not about me.
What have you been focused on? Do you need to change your words, your perspective, to see it from God’s perspective?
With love and JOY,
Laura Pedersen
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