A Matter of Perspective

If you’ve been following this column you know by now that this year has definitely been a trying one for me. Hospital stays, loss of loved ones, moving, separation from hubby due to a military deployment, struggles in changing friendships, strife of trying to mesh different lifestyles and dynamics of two families into one household, several sicknesses, the list goes on and on. It has all left me feeling drained, exhausted, and sometimes at the end of my rope.

Though I have been able to find joy in my trials, they are trials none the less. Although I am doing my best to enjoy this time with my family and back in my beloved home state-my heart and body literally ache to be back in my own home, with my sweet husband, in my comfort zone. My body is weary of being continually sick from a immune system that is zapped from stress and overwork.

Once again I was having a down moment where I was crying out to God. “This is just too hard.” I was complaining. “I don’t understand why all of this is having to happen.”

Then, as He always does, he gently pointed several things out to me. It was right around this point that I started reading Jeremy Camp’s latest book I Still Believe. It greatly focuses on him and his first wife, who he lost to cancer right after they got married. The story of her amazing faith, and his struggle and then success to go on properly rebuked me. How dare I complain? Yes, this year is probably the hardest one I’ve ever been through. But how blessed am I that I can say that?! My husband is far away, yet still safe, I have my precious children with me and their illnesses are not chronic or anything out of the ordinary.

When we are feeling sorry for ourselves we just need to lift our eyes up and out. When you consider the families struggling with cancer, the grieving mother who just lost her baby to SIDs, the father who stares at his home and all his earthly good burnt away in the Texas wildfires–well then your small problems will melt away and you will thank God that he is blessing you with what He knows you can handle!

Copyright © Nicole Elliott, Moms of Faith, All Rights Reserved

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