Think about a time in your life when it seemed like nothing was going well. There seemed to be one problem after another. Everything seemed bleak and hopeless. Whatever could go wrong seemed to have happened. You tried your best to get what you wanted, but nothing seemed to go your way. Did you find yourself feeling hopeless and angry about the state of your life? Did you have faith that better days were ahead and that the tide would turn in your favor?
If you chose to have faith, then you were not judging your life by appearances. You believed that your circumstances would shift and your life would improve without having any sign or indication of how or when it would happen. With faith, you simply chose not to believe the appearance of despair was permanent. If you have ever been inside a fun house of mirrors at a carnival, then you know that appearances can be misleading. Fun house mirrors can make you appear taller, shorter, thinner or heavier than you really are. It is all just a big illusion. Just as our lives can appear hopelessly broken, but the appearance is never real.
Life can fool us with its appearances. Our lives can seem so broken, but we may be so close to a change in fortune. We get emotionally and mentally caught up in what we see, feel and experience within our lives. If we do not like what we see in front of us, then we start to wonder if we will ever like ourselves or our lives. Will we ever get what we want? Will we ever be happy? Will we ever have more than enough money to pay our bills? Will we find true love?
I have learned that life works in cycles--high and low. At some point, we may experience a lean or low cycle where we may be lacking in some area of our lives. During these lean cycles, we may find it difficult to accomplish our dreams or even create opportunities for ourselves. We may find ourselves dealing with unexpected financial or relationship problems. Everything just seems to be closed or blocked temporarily. Sometimes, we get oh-so-close, only to have what we want slip away from us.
We have a choice in how we look at our lives during these lean cycles. We can choose to judge our lives by appearances and fall into the self-pity trap. We have learned to judge our lives by appearances which only makes our lean cycles more painful. When we judge our lives by appearances, we can find ourselves losing hope that our lives will improve. Once we give up, we become angry people who feel cheated or denied by life. We become fearful and worrisome about the future. We simply expect more doom and gloom for the future. Our troubles always seem permanent and impossible to solve.
We can always choose not to judge our lives by appearances. When we do this, we are not paying attention or keeping score on what is not going our way or what we do not like about our lives. We know that our low periods are temporary. We expect better days to emerge at some point. We are making a conscious choice to focus on what we want to happen in our lives and what is actually working well for us. We still believe without a doubt that we will have more of what we want in life in time. We do not know exactly when the tide will shift, but we simply trust that everything is happening according to divine timing. We truly understand that our lean or low periods are just temporary. We know that we have the power to work through these periods. We never count ourselves as helpless victims of our circumstances--we always cast ourselves as survivors.
There is a reason for the lean times. Our hard times offer us a bounty of life lessons. It is our job to find the lesson and keep hope alive for better days. The appearance of a lean time is not a signal from God that we cannot ever have what we want or a better life. Our low periods are not a permanent condition. A lean cycle is like a slow moving tornado passing through our lives. The tornado may create a lot of havoc and destruction, but the sun will shine brightly after it has gone. We will survive these difficult circumstances as long as we keep our hearts and our minds attuned to the better days ahead. We will overcome it. We are not defeated ever unless we believe it.
When we judge our lives by appearances, we are giving up on defeat. It is hard to bounce back and stay motivated when you believe that you are already defeated. Judging your life by appearances is like being a runner tying herself to a 10,000 pound boulder before she starts running the race. She cannot move, much less win the race, while carrying such a heavy weight.
Think about your life. If you do judge your life by appearances, just remind yourself that circumstances may not be as they seem. You could be closer to a breakthrough than you even know or realize. If circumstances are not going the way we you want, maybe you are not ready to get what you want yet. This is no way a judgment against you. It simply means that you have some growing or more preparation to do. Simply pay attention to areas that you are guided to address in your life. Know that everything happens according to divine timing and not to our timing.
Be patient with yourself and your life. Remind yourself that whatever you are going through is a temporary situation that will pass. It does not matter how long you have been dealing with unpleasantness, there is always hope for a brighter future. Never give up on yourself or your dreams. You cannot possibly imagine all the wonderful opportunities that will be open to you once you make it out of the storm. Find the lesson in the storm. Keep hope alive. Free your mind of worry, fear, guilt and anger whenever you are in the midst of the storm. Just believe that the sun will come out again and shine brightly in your life. Keep your mind and your thoughts aligned with hope during the difficult times. You will see better days ahead, no matter how much havoc and destruction the storm has created.
Affirmations: Hope fills my thoughts each day. My life is getting better everyday. I accept happiness and joy.
Copyright©2009 Jeannine Robinson All Rights Reserved