It is SO deliciously gorgeous outside. The wind is blowing, the sun is shining and I just finished sitting in the backyard with Hudson for a bit. I could sit out there all day. I might when Hudson is down for another nap!
I ate pumpkin pancakes this morning. They were good.
And despite these really good things and how good life is... Really, it is. I mean that for all of us who live in North America. I'll explain below. Despite all of this, I'm in such a funk today. Like, a really big one. I can usually get myself out of these things but today I'm totally stuck and it's frustrating me. I'm not a nice person to be around right now. Luke has just discovered this. On the phone. I bet he's turning around and heading back to wherever he just was!
Anyway, back to what I was complaining about... I know the key to getting out of this is thankfulness. I think that when you focus on what there is to be thankful for, it's difficult to focus on anything else because to focus means to direct your attention at something. You can't really "focus" on two things at the same time. So thankfulness is a good place to start.
And personally I have so much to be thankful for. But as a population of people, we have SO much to be thankful for. I've been thinking about this a lot lately since we had a guest speaker at our church named Harold Eberle a couple of weeks ago. He spends A LOT of time in Africa and the Middle East and shared with our church about what's going on in those areas of the world. It's sort of like... we know it's bad but we really don't know. Really.
Like, 1 in 6 people sleep on dirt, in the ENTIRE world. No blanket, no mattress. Or... Harold goes into churches where there are SO many widows and orphans due to war, barely surviving... it's completely normal to have large amounts of people missing limbs from war. Whole countries of women who have been ravaged by untold horrors I won't even go into... it's heartbreaking. Did you know that if you live in North America, even if you are the poorest person in this area of the world, you're quite rich compared to 98% of the ENTIRE world. Welfare? Social Security? Food Banks? Not even on the spectrum of most people's existence.
Again, thankfulness.
For safety, for my mattress, my fridge with good food in it. Ha, my fridge. And beyond those very basic things, my husband, my son, my wonderful family and friends... focus, focus, focus.
If you understand cameras and f-stop, when you have your camera set to a low f-stop like f1.8, your point of focus is very small. The lense is only focused on a very small point instead of being open to take in the whole picture. Like this photo below. I think that I get like that when I'm stuck. I focus on one thing so intensely and forget the rest of the picture. It's blurry. Even the good stuff.
The most amazing thing is that as I've been writing this, my focus has been changing and I'm feeling my feet start to move. Away from where I've been sitting today, in a funk and into thankfulness. I am feeling better already. It doesn't change the things I'm frustrated about but it changes my perspective on those things.
Because what is reality really... but perspective.
If you want to hear Harold Eberle's message, go to the website below and play the message titled "Look at the Birds"
http://houseofbread.podbean.com/
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