I’ve noticed that at the start of each new year, many individuals select a word to use to define or provide structure to their year.  I’ve always admired that.  I attempted to be one of those individuals.  Somehow it never seems to work.  It could be a product of my chronically unorganized right-brained thinking.  But rather what I’ve found is at some point, a word or phrase attaches itself to my year.  Or my life.  And yes, truth be told, to my mess as well.  

This year, that word has been perspective.  It comes up everywhere and the need for perspective has become important to me.  This is what I’ve learned:

“When we change our perspective, everything changes.”

 

This is really true, isn’t it?  I have a choice in how I perceive each situation.  As a very emotional responder, it’s wicked easy for me to just fly off the handle in any given situation.  My husband doesn’t respond the way I’d prefer to a question I ask?  Clearly it’s because our marriage is tired and old.  My daughters fidget and whisper their way through prayer time at church after we just had a come to Jesus conversation in the car on the ride over?  Clearly that’s because I’m not a good mother.  A decision I make appears to negatively effect people I love.  Clearly that’s because I’m not tuned in to what God would have for my life.  I’m a failure.  I shouldn’t even bother trying.  

No, in each of those cases, that perspective is not the best perspective.  But when I intentionally choose to remove the emotion of the moment and look at the facts of a given situation logically, everything changes.  Well, the situation doesn’t necessarily change, but my perception changes.  It begins to line up with truth.  And that breeds hope and freedom.  And it negates the lies of the enemy who would like to keep me trapped in doubt and unbelief.

Recently, I accepted the call to a new ministry position at a new church. While this is really exciting and without a doubt a God thing in the life of my family, it means uprooting my daughters from the church they’ve attended since birth, learning to know an entirely new congregation, and saying goodbye to beloved and treasured friends. Suffice it to say it’s been a difficult couple of weeks. And the road has been extremely bumpy. My perspective has been off.  I underestimated how tough things would be, I thought the transition would be easier, I didn’t anticipate the challenges that lay ahead. I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster, so last night when my foot unwittingly found a stray apholstery staple as I sat down to enjoy some tv with my sweet hubby, well, I totally lost it. I felt forsaken and alone. And I had a very un-Jesus girl meltdown.  I needed a reality check and a change of perspetive.  Because I was dangerously close to a “woe is me/I’m following what You said, God and now I’m sad AND bleeding all over the carpet” perspective.   Okay, actually I was smack in the middle of  that ugly perspetive, thankyouverymuch.  In that moment,  my husband gently reminded me that God never promised us easy but he did promise us good. I needed that truth spoken over my life at that moment. He also reminded me that he doesn’t handle blood but that’s probably a post for another day.  But in that moment, I needed to remember to breathe and trust and let the small things, MY things, go.

“Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.”  Psalm 54:4

 

Perspective is important, in whatever we do. It’s necessary in our interactions with our kids who will misbehave, spouses who will forget to bring home flowers, friends who don’t always respond as we’d expect, drivers who cut us off in traffic and well-meaning ladies at church who criticize our parenting. In each case, we can choose offense, defense or even nonsense. But when we let God’s truth into our hearts and take a look at what is REALLY going on, it makes all the difference.

Finding the right perspective isn’t always easy, but it is necessary.  Putting the cross between ourselves and our situation, lavishly offering grace to those around us just as it’s been offered to us, is freeing.  It keeps us from living in lack and it gets rid of negativity in our lives.

Perspective.  That’s the word that rises above the rest in my life.  And I trust that God will continue to provide further perspective just as I continue to seek.  

Five Minute Friday is getting a new look.  Lisa-Jo has passed the baton and Kate Motaung is running this new lap.  And I get to participate.  What a blessing!  

So here we go!  

FILL

START

I’ve taken the risk, Abba.  I’ve stepped into the river.  I’ve come this far.  But I wasn’t prepared for how much the boldness in your name would hurt.   Oh, my heart.  My eyes are heavy with tears.  And I’ve talked to so many people but still not all.  More to tell.  More hearts to break.  And my tissue box is empty.

Have I destroyed your body?

But you have promised you are enough.  You fill me.  You give me hope.  

During this time of stepping and reaching and listening you’ve promised:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”  Isaiah 43:18-19

I cling to this.  In the shadow of your wings.  You are enough and you have promised to fill my empty places.  To make streams within me where there was just a barren mess and to make a way through the desert of my heart.  So I know you’ll use me and I know you’ll dry these tears.  Because you’ve called me to go here and you won’t leave me during the goodbyes or the hellos.  No, You will fill me.  

“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.”  Psalm 42:7

Yes, I am full.  So full of your goodness.  And that’s the perfect place to be.  

In the spirit of Five Minute Friday, here are today’s raw and unedited thoughts….

BEGIN

Go.

Endings come.  There is a season for all things.  And we must have the courage to look beyond the discomfort of the ending, of the letting go, of the moving on.  Because what if we stayed in the comfortable non-ending and cashed out on the beginning that looms ahead.

To begin can be uncertain.  To begin can be uncomfortable.  When you begin, well, you just don’t know how things will end. 

But in the ending and the beginning and the becoming, God is at work.  And it seems like He does some great work in beginnings, doesn’t He?  There were a lot of beginnings that He called good.  And when we submit our desires and our thoughts to Him, when we allow him to move, when we begin to live dangerously for Him, He calls our beginnings good too.  And He promises us streams in the wilderness and pathways through the deserts. 

He’s with us in the beginnings.  Calling us.  Encouraging us.  But it’s up to us to take the leap of faith and GO.  We can’t begin if we never start.  Nope.  Doesn’t work that way. 

Beginnings are hard.  And exciting.  And totally scary.  And cumbersome.  And refreshing.  They are a part of our journey.  They give us definition and they take strength.

Now is the hour.  Be bold.

Begin again.  Whatever it is that needs beginning in your life.

Begin again.  And live.

So often I’ve seen opportunities for blog hops and shares and I knew I had words burgeoning within me.  Words that needed to be shared.  But alas, I didn’t have a blog.  How ever would I share?

Well.

So now there’s this.  And I’m terrified ready to give it a go.

This morning, Lisa-Jo Baker shared the following prompt for her “Five Minute Friday”:

BLOOM

This is my contribution.

START—

Everyday I watch them bloom.  Little girls.  One now a young woman, really.  The other hot on her heels.

The day my first daughter was placed in my arms I knew a fear like nothing I’d ever known before.  And also love and joy inexpressible.  But oh, that fear.  And it really didn’t have much to do with her.  At least not directly.  No, it was much more about me.  Would I be good enough.  Would I care for her well enough.  Would I say the right things.  Would I ever learn to cook nourishing meals?  Could I walk worth of her?

Motherhood is scary for sure, but it wasn’t long before God put his hand right down on my head and impressed this message on me:  Do you trust me?  Because I see you.  And her.  And she who isn’t even here yet.  We’re in this together.  You are enough with me.

So trust became easier, because let’s face it, the trenches are hard.  But in my daughters, as I watch them grow and change, I can see His promises fleshed out in front of me.

….fearfully and wonderfully made….

…..treasured possession…..

…..masterpiece….

And as they bloom, as they become just exactly who God planned for them to be from the beginning, there’s a new growth in me too.  As the carpool lines and class parties and late night text messages are deadheaded from my life, as I choose to see the beauty around me, the beauty in them rather than the things we need to work on or that cause me displeasure, He works in my heart just the same.

We three girls are blooming.  Right here.  Right now.

Blooming, bending, growing into everything He ever wanted us to be.

And that is more than enough.

STOP

In a world full of labels it’s awfully easy to get a bit confused about who we really are. Woman in particular are absolutely bombarded with rules and images about what we should be striving to be. And don’t we all want to be attractive, trim, fit, lovely…?

But there’s never been a day in my life when someone named me pretty. And goodness knows I’ve been far more comfortable identifying my self with less than positive attributes.

And in all that feeling less-than, I’ve begun to feel rather purposeless. Defeated. If people don’t like me, if I can’t measure up in their eyes, how in the ever-loving world can I be anything but a blip on the radar in my Heavenly Father’s eyes?

How?

Well, that’s an interesting question. With an equally interesting answer.

We forget that the word says, “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at an outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

This is truth. When God looks at us, He is not interested in the things the world uses to measure us up. Instead, He looks at us, and sees his Son. Dearly loved. Right now. Right in the middle of our mess. Oh, dear heart! Right in the middle of the things we shouldn’t have said and the good intentions and the dirty floors and the chicken thawing in the sink.

Zephaniah 3:18 puts it this way: “…The Lord will delight in you, and in His love He will give you new life. He will sing and be joyful over you…”

You don’t have to measure up to someone else’s list of standards. You don’t have to work for His love. You can’t earn it. On the contrary, as Pastor Derwin Gray says in “Limitless Life,” “Your purpose for existing is this: to let God the Father love you.”

Isn’t that beautiful?

And what might He sing over us? Well, I have an idea….

“Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come…Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.” (Song of Songs 2:10-13)

Beautiful One. That’s me. That’s you. Believe it!