Day 23: Changing Perspective

I love new adventures.  I really love change.  (We have moved 7 times in 13 years- and loved it.)  Steve loves change too.  This makes for a great match as we usually get the itch together. Keeps life fun and exciting.  Our kids are a different story.

Some change is comfortable for me.  Like moving houses, moving states, or making new friends.  Some change is highly uncomfortable.  Like the change that needs to happen in my heart.

Perspective is an area I’ve been trying to grow in.  Steve does a great job in helping me here because he seems to always look into a situation from a stance of all positions.  This doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’ve seen God growing me here over the last year.  He likes to give lots of practice too.

Recently, I was at an event and I overheard a conversation between a grandmother and her grandchild.  The grandmother offered a particular snack and the little girl politely declined saying, “My mom doesn’t like me to eat those things.”  The grandmother snapped back, “Yes, I know.  Your mother grew up just fine eating these things.  But it’s not good enough for you now I suppose.”

Now since this wasn’t happening to me, and I was an innocent bystander, I had a completely different perspective of this situation.  Here was a grandchild who was politely declining out of respect and obedience to her parents.  And here was a grandmother who had formulated some ideas that she was letting seep out to her grandchild.

I don’t know these people so maybe there have been heated discussions about health and nutrition.  But I couldn’t help but feel sad for both the grandmother and the mother who wasn’t around at the time.  The grandmother seemed to believe that her own mothering skills were under attack by choices her daughter had made that were different than the ones she had once made.  I wondered if the daughter would have seen the situation completely differently.  More from a stance of ‘my mom did the best she could with the information available to her.  I don’t fault her at all.’

Maybe she didn’t feel that way, but I wondered.

And I wondered how many times in relationships I’ve made assumptions I had no right to make because my perception of the situation was off course.

Hearing this conversation from afar really opened my eyes to the situations I take part in where I don’t have the vantage point of an outsider.  When we are in it, sometimes our emotions outweigh logic.

Changing our perspective is uncomfortable.  Sometimes it forces us into confrontation, but sometimes it saves relationships and the heart.

[box] This is Day 23 in a series, 31 Days to Get Uncomfortable With God. Please click here for a listing of all posts in this series. If you would like posts delivered to your inbox, please click here.[/box]