The last couple months have really been rough. For those who deal with me on a regular basis, you’ve seen my general vibe change several times as I’ve walked this stretch of the road called life. I’ve had to deal with depression/worry, a month on antidepressant drugs, recent diagnoses that I have ADD, more worry. All this started due to martial problems (as my previous post made fairly obvious). But problems spread. The worry over my marriage began to affect my ability to focus on work, which in turn affected the amount of work I’m able to do, which resulted in a 25%+ drop in my income, which caused more worry. Rinse, lather, repeat.
When you’re facing problems you have to make choices. Do I ignore the problem, run from it, try to fix it? If I run, where do I go? If I try to fix it, what do I do? I don’t like change. As such I usually try to find a solution that requires the least amount of change.
But this time around, all the solutions require a great deal of change. Until I make those changes I’ll be uncomfortable, unhappy, and quite moody. I’ve been told by others that once I make the changes I’ll be happy again. Logically that makes sense… and I’ve always prided myself in being a logical individual. But still I find myself fighting change, even after agreeing to it. Part of me still wants the change that would be caused by running from this situation. But I’ve given my word that I’d stand my ground and make the changes required of me. Last night at church I said a simple prayer. I asked God to either remove that urge to run or to provide me a door to run through, but not to leave me in a room with no exit and a desire to run. I sat through a great service last night where the Holy Spirit was moving mightily and I left the same way I entered because I couldn’t stop thinking about myself long enough to enter into His presence. So much for me being logical.
So what does all that have to do with the title of this post? Simple. No matter how bad you think the situation you’re in is, your opinion of it is all a mater of perspective and can be changed in an instant. This morning I went from being totally self absorbed to feeling enormous empathy for a complete stranger. All I did was read a blog post on his MySpace page. And now I sit here with the same problems that seemed so enormous before and they look so much more manageable. The problems haven’t changed. I’m still behind at work, I’m still behind on some bills, I still have to make some major changes in myself and in my marriage. But now I can feel a touch of hope in my heart. I feel some encouragement to press on. After reading what Wayne wrote, I can’t help but feel that if he can have the attitude that he has after what he’s been through… where do I get off acting the way I’ve been acting? That’s not to say it’s going to be easy, just easier, now that my attitude has been adjusted.
And for this I thank Wayne for willingly sharing his story. And I thank God for letting me somehow stumble across it earlier today.
And for my readers I leave you with this: Any problem can look like a mountain or a molehill, it all depends on your prospective. If you don’t like your perspective of your situation, just pray as I did last night. God will hear you and He will help.
In our accountability group class yesterday at church our discussion started out about tomorrow being the 6th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As the topic shifted and new subjects were brought up I noticed that everyone in the group, myself included, seems to have their own opinion on what a Christian’s role in society is these days. Some seem to to feel that a Christian should pray for our government as commanded in the Bible but spend the rest of our time trying to spread the Gospel of Christ to the exclusion of getting involved in any politics. Others felt that while evangelism was important we still have a civic responsibility to promote candidates that support our beliefs.