Monday, May 5, 2008

Eternal Perspective

I guess I'm starting to get nervous. I have to speak on Monday to a large group of women, and as grateful as I am for the opportunity, I can't help focusing on what I'm going to say of if it will have any impact. When you put yourself out there for God, you're hoping to make a difference for SOMEONE...anyone really. I started thinking about all of the things that have happened in my life and how my perspective has changed so much, even though the circumstances stand unchanged.



I was pregnant and unmarried at 17. Not that big of a shocker in this day and age, but it rocked to the core my Bible belt family. Needless to say, it was a very unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. As I struggled through college and a terrible marriage...I dwell ed on how God didn't protect me...didn't watch out for me. How I was left to suffer the consequences when I saw a lot of girls doing the same thing...maybe doing it even more....and they never ended up pregnant. I thought about it when I had to decline walking in my high school graduation. I thought about it when I would go to the grocery store and get disapproving looks from older women. I thought about it as a single mother struggling to make it out of college with two jobs and a little girl. I thought about it a lot and I never got an answer.



Fast forward a few years. I grew up. I became a believer. I changed. I got an eternal perspective. Was it that God didn't protect me? No. After all, statistically I should have gotten an STD? Was it that God didn't watch out for me? No. I never wanted for anything and always had plenty. In fact, although I struggled, I beat the odds and graduated from college with high marks.

I get it now. My vision isn't short sighted...it's long term. All those years when I thought that God had abandoned me and took revenge, he was really being merciful. Instead of all of the bad things that could have happened...he took one look at me and decided that he would make me a mother. He gave me the opportunity to be "Mommy" to a great kid.

See what I mean? Same outcome, different outlook. He didn't curse me with a teenage pregnancy...he blessed me in spite of my sinfulness. Sometimes I think a lot of the bad things that happen to us in life are like this. Maybe if we could see the big picture, we would understand what he has in store for all of us. If we could get over our shortsightedness we could see how differently tragedies look with eternity in mind.

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