Perspective

Perspective. Being so set in my ways, I’ll admit that it’s annoying when someone asks me to change my perspective. I’ll also admit that I never really saw changing my perspective as resulting in a feeling of gratitude and an overwhelming thanks, until I felt like God himself was asking me to change my perspective, to look again and see things I might have missed, not necessarily to see that I was wrong or to be blamed for my problems or way of thinking, but more so to see the blessings, the gifts, and miracles that I somehow overlooked, making my problems really seem so small.

I love this quote from Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church, “The presence of God will not always fix your problems, but it will clarify your perspective.” I feel like it’s easy to just want God to fix our problems, knowing that He can. However, many times, problems aren’t really problems when God clarifies our perspective to see such problems in place of what could have been often times, much worse. A clarification of perspective can show us all the things that God has kept us from and blessed us with, immensely outweighing what we are left to see in front of us. I feel as if with shifting our perspective, it’s less about saying, “God fix my problem” and more about seeing that the problem really isn’t a problem. I also know that it’s not easy to have the want to always take a step back and try to see things differently, but as believers, we must know that things are never as they seem, especially with faith being at the forefront of what we believe. The Bible says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews‬ ‭11:1‬. It also says in ‭‭II Corinthians‬ ‭4:18, “while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
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If we are not careful to look beyond what we see, we are likely to miss the blessings, and even sometimes, what in my case I feel to be a miracle from God. God has revealed to me really through my perspective of things being so bad with my arm, that things could have been and in fact I believe even were, much worse than how they ended up. This is a part of my story I have been hesitant to share, because it just does sound so unbelievable, especially apart from faith and believing in a God of miracles. But in my believing in a God that is the same yesterday, today, and forever, I believe that He is and was and was and is, still, a God of miracles. And just as Jesus says in Mark 9:23, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
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If you have read my story of the initial trauma of the wreck we experienced, you know that in that wreck, I was not only faced with losing my life, but also with losing my right arm. It was reported to the doctors upon my arrival to the emergency room that there was bone broken and protruding through my arm that had been ripped apart and deformed in the incident. This report came from the EMT that so quickly cared for and delivered me to the hospital to do everything they could to, in his words, “save my arm”. I will never forget the relief that came from the lady that ran across the highway to check on my family and lift my shirt to reveal that I was not bleeding out from the abdomen. That relief being that my initial fear of losing my life was unlikely. However, I will also never forget the shock on my husband’s face as well as the horrific look on the EMT’s face when assessing my arm injury. As I looked into that EMT’s face, one who is trained and has seen the worst of the worst as a first responder, I just knew there was a great chance that I may lose my arm. When I asked him that very question, he assured me that they would likely take me back to surgery immediately to do “everything they could” again to “save my arm”. Once arriving to the hospital, the need of such quickly diminished when the trauma doctor angrily announced that he wasn’t sure why it was reported that I had bone severed and protruding through, because that was not (or really what I believe no longer) the case.

If you know the rest of the story, you know I did lose lots of skin, ligaments, and even bone in my arm, and did have to have surgery to rebuild both my wrist and elbow areas, not to mention have another surgery and continued therapy to date to be able to use and rehabilitate that arm back to life, but I do in fact still have a functioning right arm. My perspective of all that I have been through with it, at times, has been rough, but my perspective in knowing that I could have lost it, changes things. Through little whispers from God, talking to Eric about what he saw, and looking again at things, I truly believe that God put my arm back together to the point that things were not as they initially seemed. While things with my arm were still in fact bad, while the problems were in fact big, my God, took was was meant to harm me, and turned it to good. Hearing Eric (my husband who has been trained through the military to see and deal with trauma in the field) describe and confirm that he knows what he saw coming out of my arm to be the bone, and remembering the look on that EMT’s face when he assessed my injury, I know that God not only saved my life that night of that car collision, but He also performed a miracle with my arm and put it back together to the point of being salvageable. A miracle I believe to be true and am able to recognize, all by shifting my perspective to see what could have been.

Maybe there is a problem right in front of you today that you need to look at again. A perspective that you need to shift to see what could have been. My arm is a real problem. Still dealing with pain and therapy to get it back to how it should be is frustrating. But y’all, I have an arm. An arm that I truly believe God himself miraculously saved. An arm that is evidence of things not seen. I feel blessed to have this arm, to have my life. I am grateful beyond words that my husband and children were protected, that I was protected, and that I am witness of a true miracle all by the grace of God. Shift your perspective, look beyond what is seen. Do as Colossians 3:2 says and “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” Don’t miss the blessings. Don’t miss your miracle.