Putting life in Perspective

“On the mountain I will bow my life to the one who set me there.  In the valley I will lift my eyes to the one who sees me there.  When I’m standing on the mountain I didn’t get there on my own.  When I’m walking through the valley I know I am not alone.”  I love this song, “Hills and Valleys” by Tauren Wells.  I think it puts life into perspective perfectly.

Life is full of hills and valleys; ups and downs.  Sometimes we are on a mountain top and things are going absolutely perfect.  You feel like nothing can bring you down and nothing can go wrong.  You also have your low points.  Days when you think nothing is ever going to get better and you’ll never be happy again.  When we get to these high or low points it is important to keep life in perspective and remember that God is still here and is still the Lord of our lives.

We’ve all had good times and bad times.  I’ve already talked about my younger years in middle school and high school when I was feeling so alone and abandoned by God.  Most of the time I didn’t turn to Him.  I didn’t ask Him for help or to make me feel better.  More often than not I buried my feelings deep down inside and continued to pretend to be happy.  I hid behind books and writing to make myself feel better.  It only would work for a little bit before I was once again drowning in a pit of depression.  Finally I realized God’s love for me and turned to Him to fix my broken spirit.  He fixed me permanently, unlike my books or writing ever could.  I still get in sad slumps, but I know where to turn to now, and I know I’m never alone.

I’ve also had a lot of high points in my life.  One of those was my first semester of college.  Things were going great for me.  I had easy classes, was making lots of new friends.  I didn’t think anything could bring me down.  I forgot who had brought me to that place.  I forgot that God was the reason for my success and the new friends I had made.  Second semester I was still feeling on top of the world and still didn’t give God the thanks and glory He deserved.  Second semester turned out to be a lot harder without God by my side.  I had to turn to Him in order to get out of the slump I had sunk into because I wasn’t relying on Him.

“On the mountain I will bow my life to the one who set me there.”  When we are at our high points and loving life, we need to remember to thank God and acknowledge that He is the one that got us to where we are, not us. “When I’m standing on the mountain, I didn’t get there on my own.”  We are not the ones who make our lives great.  God is.  When you get that pay raise you’ve been waiting for, yes you may have earned it, but remember that God is the one who gave it to you.  He blesses us with so many things.  When things are going well we tend to step away from God and think we don’t need Him anymore.  This couldn’t be further from the truth! God gives us everything we have in our lives.  Even when things are going well, we still need to pray and ask God to help us continue on the path He wants us to live.  When we live for ourselves, and not for God, that’s usually when things start to head downhill.

The other thing we need to remember is that God is always there for us.  “In the valley I will life my eyes to the one who sees me there.”  When things are tough and it seems like there’s no end in sight, God is still there!  He’s watching us and taking care of us!  He sees us in our struggle and when we reach out to Him, He will always help us.  One of my favorite poems of all time is “Footprints” by Mary Stevenson.  “One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
“Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You’d walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don’t understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.”

He whispered, “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.””

I love the last line. “When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.” God is always watching out for us.  He is always there and would never leave us alone, even in our darkest times.  “When I’m walking through the valley I know I am not alone.”  If you’re in a valley right now I promise you are not alone!

It’s hard to remember that God is always watching out for us when we’re feeling depressed and lonely.  It’s hard to remember to give God the glory when things are going well.  We need to put life in perspective and remember that no matter what is going on, God is there and is helping us get to where He wants us to be.

I’m just the daughter of a small down girl… living in a roller coaster of a world.

Images taken from Google.