Change your perspective, change your life.

Its not what happens to you but what happens in you that really counts.......

After a very difficult period over Christmas and New Year culminating in having to postpone my daughters wedding (which obviously resulted in many tears and much heartache all round) I have been reflecting on how my own individual response to the difficulty made a difference to the immediate and the longer term effects on me and hopefully on my family.


Despite the obvious pain of seeing loved ones going through pain and disappointment and the deep anguish of not being able to fix it for my daughter there was in my heart a quiet confidence that all would be well and that through it all God had a different perspective and a bigger plan that at the moment we cannot see. 


This belief in Gods goodness and kindness gave me a hope filled perspective and allowed me to experience a great deal of inner peace despite the very real emotional pain that was being felt by me and all involved. 
The main thing was that never once did I lose the sense of hope for something good to come out of the experience and that somehow the tears would indeed give way to laughter and the sound of joyful singing. 


However my inner peace often caused me to sound super positive to those around me and occasionally may have given off an impression that I did not care and that I was simply being blaise about everything which added to their own pain. Although this was not true I had to remember that people's perspective is their own reality and therefore their own truth regardless of what is actually true.


Three lessons have occurred to me as I continue to reflect on this period of disappointment and my response to it.
1. The confident expectation of good things from the hand of God is a perspective of hopefulness that can get you through the most difficult situations with a large dose of inner peace that saves you from becoming bitter and cynical about love and life....but
2. Don't judge those who don't appreciate that perspective and might find your approach foolish and unreal but....
3. Don't stop sharing your hope because Hope is contagious....eventually.


The scripture that encouraged me/us most was Lamentations 3 v 20-26
My soul is downcast within me.Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning;  great is your faithfulness. 

I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;  therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,  to the one who seeks him;  It is good to wait quietly  for the salvation of the LORD. 

We are still waiting for a better outcome but we wait with Hope.