Shift Your PerspectiveMostra

Have you ever been going through something difficult and started feeling sorry for yourself? You became negative and wondered why bad things always happen to you? I went through this recently, and I want to share how God used a 12-year-old Polish girl to drag me out of my self-focus. I was in a season where it seemed one bad thing happened after another. My husband got very sick with COVID and, while he was recovering, my kids and I were involved in a hit-and-run accident. About a week later, we were asked to leave our church, a family member deeply hurt us, my stepfather was hospitalized, and my son fell while playing basketball and broke his hip. This was all in a very short period of time, and I started to feel down, depressed even. I began to fear what else was coming. My focus was only on my suffering. Well, here's the story I want to tell you about this 12-year-old Polish girl. She's actually my daughter; we adopted her five years ago. She has learned some English but doesn't communicate super well. Despite these issues, she loves to pray. Every morning, our family does devotions together and takes turns praying. I always ask if there are any prayer requests. The kids' requests are almost always an animal who is hurt or a person who is sick. When it is my daughter's turn to pray instead of asking for healing, she accidentally says, "Thank you God for the animal who is hurt, and thank you for the person who is sick". I always thought it was precious, but planned to teach her how to actually pray someday. What I didn't realize was that God was using her to teach ME how to actually pray. The Bible tells us we are supposed to rejoice in our suffering; we are supposed to count it as joy. It is through our trials the Lord can mold us and shape us into the people He calls us to be. It is through the fires we can be refined. When I discovered this, everything changed. My entire perspective on the trials I'd been going through shifted. I looked back and realized that when my husband was very sick, the Lord brought exactly the right people into our lives to help him recover. When I was in the hit-and-run accident with my children, we walked away without a scratch on our bodies. When we were asked to leave our church and hurt by our family, we grew closer to the Lord and learned to pray for those who persecuted us. When my stepfather was hospitalized, we grew closer in our relationship. When my son fell and broke his hip, it didn't take him 12 weeks to heal like the doctors said. Only 22 days later he was playing basketball again, I got to see a miracle firsthand. The Lord used my daughter to show me how my perspective was wrong. If you are currently going through a trial, are suffering, or starting to feel down, try shifting your perspective. The enemy wants you to focus on yourself and he wants you to feel depressed and alone. He wants you to believe you can't go on. If you can get the focus off yourself and onto the glory of God, everything will change. Focus on the good things He is doing in your life and the blessings He is pouring over you through those trials. I now pray just like my daughter, and I hope you can too by saying, "Thank you, Lord, for these trials." Now go let your light shine!