Your Perspective. Your Choice

I've been thinking about writing this blog for a while so when I heard my pastor talk about perspective this morning, I knew it was time.  Perspective is something that shapes our experiences and molds our memories far beyond the now.  We carry our perspective every where we go and we constantly add and subtract as needed to clearly see the picture of our lives.

All of us piece together our perspective with good, bad, fun, not so fun, boring, exciting!  The one thing that does not shape our perspective is someone else's experiences.  Imagine two people standing at the dock watching a skier do his fancy tricks and he wipes out.  Each of the two bystanders will have similar but different variations of the events.  Uniquely swayed by each persons attention to detail, life experience, or even level of vision.

Yesterday, when I buried one of my tiny chicks who was crushed in the late night cuddle session, I decided to move the other tiny chick indoors at night.  Of the eight babies that survived The Great Chicken Relocation of 2012, one was crushed by the other chicks during a late night cuddle under the warming light.  The last two babies are smaller because they were born last and they are bantams.  Bantams are miniature chickens.  Although tiny, they make up for their size in their grand attitude.  Ok, stay with me.  The surviving baby bantam chick is being removed nightly to the big purple box inside.  Tiny is truly half the size of the other chicks even though he is only three days younger.

Tiny, when moved indoors for the evening, cheeps and cheeps and cheeps and cheeps.  He does not like being alone and thinks I am a mean farmer lady for quarantining him at night.  This morning when I took him back outside with his friends, he walked up to each one and cheeped something.  He worked his way through all six of the chicks and then he ran around and flapped his tiny Tiny wings.  I watched him cuddle with the chicks and cheep louder if they tried to keep him from cuddling with them.  As I write, Tiny is CHEEPING and won't quit.

My perspective is, I'm saving him from being crushed on accident by his friends on this cold night.  His perspective is, farmer lady is evil and is taking him away from his family.  He remembers these long nights filled with crying only to be returned to his family in the morning.  Maybe if he cries louder he will see them sooner.  As you can see, our perspectives are entirely different even though we are both a part of the same experience.

I am a child of divorced parents and over the years as I hear my parents talk about what did and did not work in their marriage, the one thing I can truly understand is our perspectives will never be the same.  We were all there for the marriage.  We lived in the same house and ate the same food, celebrated the same holidays and went on the same vacations.  Every single day and every experience we had together shaped a different perspective in each one of us.

I think one of the most pivotal moments in our lives comes when we choose to allow the negative experiences in our lives to outweigh the positive.  Everyone has STUFF.  Some people have more stuff than others.  You are the one who chooses how to live out your life given your perspective.  I do know God can help tremendously.  He can help you to leave the past behind and to forgive all sin.  God is also your choice.  He stands at the door and knocks...

Revelation 3:20

New International Version (NIV)

²⁰ Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.  (biblegateway.com)

Life is full of choices and I'm sure your perspective is filled with lots of stuff, good and bad, but how will you choose to make that perspective productive.  How will your individual events and lives impact those around you?  Will you use them to hurt people or help people?  To encourage or discourage?  To punish or to forgive?  To hate or to discipline? Your Perspective.  Your Choice.