I have talked about perspective a few times in my blogs, and it is hard to convey my perspective to you and difficult for me and others to understand your perspective. Agreed?
I finally saw a picture that truly portrays the word. It is National Geographic's photo of the year and it is the picture above.
The picture above is of zebras the black part is their shadow, zoom in and have a look, I was absolutely amazed. From my perspective, it was black horses not shadows. Did you figure that out before I mentioned it? It’s a pretty neat picture!
If someone had not told me it was zebras, I would have argued intensely that it was not, my eyes could not see it.
Perspective, what our eyes see, what our brains think, what we think we know – all of it is filtered through a lens of sorts and that makes seeing things not always accurate, even if we think we are “sure”.
A week ago we had chicken killing day. Oh, my stars, if I never have to endure one of those again, it will be awesome! My very good friend Lois thinks otherwise, twice now she has told me what a fun day it was….. perspective.
The day took her back to her childhood where chicken killing day was part of the normal of farming, for her it was a normal thing. For me, the city girl – not so much!
We had a fairly intense week a couple weeks back. I wrote about the chimney fire, the chimney moving sideways twilight zone thing, but it got worse.
Chimney fire, then the next day the water froze in the house, the furnace broke and would not turn on, we bought a new furnace and had it installed on chicken killing day, it still is making weird noises. All in all it was not a “great” week and I felt like I was standing on the edge and then got kicked off! It was too much!
What was the theme of this blog? Perspective.
The miracle of the chimney fire was that the smoke always went straight up, the house got no smoke – we stood and watched in amazement at the miracle of the smoke going straight up.
Then the water freezing, well it was very inconvenient but the miracle was we happened to have a herman nelson heater so Brian whipped home and put it on under the trailer to thaw things out.
The furnace breaking. Well, it is as old as the trailer (2000) and we last year prayed it would last til the next winter. It did – yup another miracle.
Chicken killing day – the miracle of the day was Lois! She was the only one who even knew what to do! Like what kind of awesome friend is that that shows up for chicken killing day???? A great one and then still is your friend afterwards too!
Perspective – we can focus on the "Oh My Stars do you know what happened!!???" And launch into the horror story of the week OR "Oh My Stars do you know what happened?" And launch into the miracles we witnessed during the events of the week. Our choice is what we set our focus on.
When I focus on the zebras in the picture, I see them fast and clearly, or I could focus on the shadows and have to look for the zebras – my choice is what I set my eyes on.
Let me tell you a story:
I was driving home yesterday from Gr Prairie, it was getting dusk-ish, not dark yet. At the last moment I felt the need to turn to the lower road into our house. It had been a warm and wonderful 8 degrees out and I felt that perhaps the road that I normally take had perhaps broken up or snow had melted and made ice. I assumed that God had told me to turn for those reasons, my perspective. I had no idea what it really meant, I just knew I needed to turn.
I made the right turn to go up the hill towards our house and I casually looked out my drivers window and saw 2 quads on top of the “pond”, I thought it was kids romping around.
But then I looked again, #1) they were on the pond and it was warm
#2) the back of one quad was in the water
#3) these were not kids
I stopped and backed up and put down my window, at that moment the phone rang, it was Brian and he was at home (for those of you who know him and his usual work schedule, his being home is kind of a miracle in itself!).
I yelled out to the people, “looks like you need some help.”
I got Brian on the phone and told him to come on down, now.
The elderly couple, in their 70’s was indeed in need of some help, they lived on the lower road and I recognized them immediately.
The gentleman is partially crippled and the quad is his legs, he was on the quad in the water and trying to get it to climb out. She was on the quad in the front with a winch and trying to get enough traction on the slippery snow to pull him out. It was not working. I yelled at them that Brian was coming and to hang on.
I felt totally helpless as I watched them try several times to get him out. I was praying like crazy and I was talking to Jesus intensely, and asking that this quad did not slide back and totally submerge.
Brian arrived in minutes and promptly walked over the pond, (I was a bit nervous to) but ended up donning my farm boots that I keep in my car and walking out as well.
Brian got the man to get off the quad and I reached out and helped steady him as Brian guided the quad and the lady with the winch when to stop and start. I prayed harder!
Within 10 minutes the quad was out and the folks were safe and I was one thankful spectator.
What if I had been 15 minutes later and it was dark? I would not have seen them.
What if I had not asked Jesus to come help us?
Brian informed me afterwards that the gentleman does not even have a cell phone to call for help. I have a built in communication system with God.
From my perspective taking the lower road was God’s way of watching over me, but I now know it was a God miracle that I showed up when I did, for you see Jesus knew when, where and how I should come home.
We told the couple that they owed us a coffee, she added, “even some goodies!” We intend to collect on this coffee date and I will be talking to them about Jesus and how He saved them, even if they have no idea He was involved.
From their perspective we were the hero’s, from our perspective Jesus gets ALL the credit!
For those of us who think we “know” something is true, real or not, remember the zebra and black horse picture and remember you could be looking at the situation from the wrong perspective.