The Struggle of the Up Close

When we're up close to something for too long, sometimes we forget where our view fits into the big picture. If we aren't fond of our tiny window view, our ambition quickly fizzles, our hearts fill with discouragement, and our hope slips out the back. We can become disillusioned by the things right in front of us because our view is focused in one tiny spot.

Pull that view back a bit and we see what previously gave us a sense of weedy overtake or drowning impossibilities is actually part of a flowing stream filled with beauty, possibility and hope.

If there has been anything consistent about this past (almost) year (of walking the road of mental illness with my husband + its effects), it has been the battle of perspective and choosing hope when my little window view gave me no good reason to do so. When we establish in our hearts and mind that God is at work in the bigger picture, we can more readily trust He is paving the way for His glory and our good. Not that the hopelessness of our view doesn't win out some days, but overall we choose to hope in the God of the bigger picture.

Whatever your little view just now, keep choosing hope, in even the smallest of things, because God is about the work of scripting the bigger story. He can be trusted because He is good.

[SIDE NOTE: a spot on that bench is saved for those of you visiting Whisper Mountain Camp any time soon!]