Perspective Changes Everything

I was inspired to write this blog after talking to a friend of mine about giving thanks in all things just like it says in 1st Thess. 5:18.

I once watched the movie “The Pursuit of Happiness”. One of the things that really stood out to me was how the dad could take a potentially horrible situation and turn it into a fun adventure for his son. I would always think to myself that I would love to be able to be like that. What a special gift that dad had.

Well, after writing to my friend about what I mentioned earlier, I started thinking back on times in my family’s life when situations were less than desirable and that’s when I realized that the Lord had helped me to go through those times joyfully, viewing them with a different perspective and making an adventure out of them. I didn’t even fully realize it until I thought back on it.

There are quite a few examples that I could write about but one particular time really stands out and I would love to share it. We were without a vehicle for quite a while. Not that that’s a big deal but to all the people that I’ve talked to, they all saw it as a somewhat negative and undesirable situation. After all, as a society, we do rely heavily on our personal transportation.

So here we are, a family of five with our children ages 13, 7 and 4 having to either walk to where we wanted to go or use the public bus system. This is where perspective changed everything. I could have complained about having to leave for work an hour early and walk 10 - 15 minutes to the closest bus stop (sometimes in the pouring down rain), or grudgingly went grocery shopping knowing that we’d have to carry all those groceries all the way back home, or gotten depressed because we were limited to where we could go. But, instead, it ended up being one of the best times we have ever had. Our children still talk about how much fun they had when we didn’t have a car and had to take the bus. Sometimes they even say that they wish we didn’t have a car now.

We walked so much during that time. We noticed things that we never noticed when flying by in a car. Our lives seemed to slow down so much and it was truly wonderful. Sometimes, on the weekend, we would each get an all day bus pass and just get on the bus and go. We didn’t really have a final destination in mind and would sometimes take several buses to go in different directions all over town. We would just spend the day on an exploring adventure. At other times we would get caught in some of Florida’s famous torrential downpours. That was the absolute best!! We would be running home from the bus stop (which was about 10 -15 minutes away), soaked to the bone, just screaming and laughing the whole way. We would see who could find the biggest puddles to jump into.

These are memories that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. I’m so thankful that they will be positive, happy memories and not negative memories full of regret. I’m even more thankful that the Lord was able to work in my life to cause me to have the right perspective!