This has been a rough, hard, unexpected year. There have been ups and downs, too many unknowns, and many depressing, discouraging, difficult days. However, through the challenging times, we have been blessed--blessed with help with the boys, blessed with meals, blessed with an outpouring of love, and blessed with growth and eyes to see the silver linings in the storm.
People are constantly telling me things like, "Every time I think I have it hard, you come to mind, and I realize how easy I have it." or "This in NO WAY compares to what you're going through, but..." I always smile when I hear these phrases of comparison because who is to say that one trial is SO much more difficult than another? Everything depends upon perspective. If I am ever complaining or feeling sorry for myself, I hear a story that puts everything back in place. I was at my doctor, waiting for my immunity booster shot, which makes me achy and pretty sick. Another patient explained that she was allergic to that shot, so she had to come down to the hospital 5 out of 7 days a week to get a daily shot to keep her numbers up. I was immediately grateful for the one powerful, yet effective shot, even with its negative side effects. Even when I think my experiences with cancer can't possibly get worse, I'm quickly reminded that they can, or I hear an experience from someone else that instantly makes me grateful for my unique experiences and trials in all of this.
After my recent difficulties with becoming so sick, having no energy, and being forced to push back chemo for a week, I was up all night, thinking about perspective. Two people could experience the same challenge and have completely different ways of coping, different stories to tell, and could have completely different outcomes after the difficulties pass. Often, the way we look at trying times can affect our entire experience. Changing our perspective can change our motivation, our reactions, and often our evaluation of an experience.
We have a limited ability to see, and often our perspective can be easily skewed to trick our minds into thinking we see something that isn't there. From far away, mountains look like rolling hills, roads become more narrow, tall trees seem chopped down to our size, and railroads seem to converge.
From high above, entire cities become mapped out like squares on a game board. In the dark, every day objects can seem terrifying. When face-to-face with a road block, it fills our entire field of view, making it appear to be the only object in the world. We have to learn how to train our mortal eyes to shift from getting discouraged and bogged down in our skewed perspective of our earthly experiences into the faith of an eternal perspective.
I believe in eternity. I believe we existed and lived as our spirits before being born. I believe we chose to come to this earth to be tested and tried and to gain physical bodies and experience the love of family relationships. I believe that after our earthly test is completed, we will go on after death, able to take our knowledge, our experiences, and our relationships with us. The faith in this plan of our Father in Heaven, with the ultimate goal of eternal life, is the foundation of an eternal perspective. If we keep the end goal in mind, our trials in this stage seem small in comparison.
I've heard all about having an eternal perspective pretty much my entire life. In fact, I think it's one of my Dad's favorite topics. Learning to look on things of an eternal nature helps focus our perspective of worldly challenges and even blessings. Brigham Young once said that he would wish to bless people to have “eyes with which to see things as they are.” (Journal of Discourses, 3:221) This implies that our mortal eyes cannot always view the day-to-day with the proper perspective. Our vision is vastly limited in comparison to the eternal nature and eternal vision of God. Isaiah 55: 8-9 tells us, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Our Father in Heaven is eternal in nature and can see the past, present, and future. We can only see the here and now, often coming face-to-face with some stumbling block in our path. We need to train ourselves to focus beyond the boulders in our view, for from a distance they seem as pebbles, or even grains of sand. What seems like a jumbled, confusing, road ahead when in the middle of it can actually be an easy course to navigate if the focus is pressing forward to the end.
Our motivation to keep moving comes from faith that all our experiences will be for our good and that weak things will be made strong. With that perspective, we can find the strength to press on through the challenges.
I gained experience with shifting perspective during my years of teaching math to 5th and 6th graders. I introduced new subjects to my students in one of the easiest ways on this earth to learn--line upon line, precept upon precept. We started our study of geometry by reviewing points. A point is the foundation upon which geometry is built, the name of any location, an individually defined place in space.
Then, we learned that there are an infinite number of points, all identified by their location.
You can start connecting points to make lines, or line segments.
Then, we learned that those line segments can actually go on infinitely in both directions,
that an infinite amount of lines can be drawn through all of these points, that there are an infinite number of points on each line in between the original points, that all these points and lines are defined in a plane, a flat, 2-dimensional surface.
Then, their minds were blown when they made the connection and shifted their perspectives to see that we actually live in a 3-dimensional world, meaning there are an infinite number of planes defining all angles and directions and that each contain an infinite number of points and lines! The perspective of my students had to quickly shift from one point in one dimension to infinity in all directions and in all planes! That shift can be a bit overwhelming because even though they understood that all these planes and points and lines were constantly overlapping and crossing, there were times when they had to isolate a few points or a few lines in one plane and simply focus on finding a way to solve one problem at a time. They could still have the knowledge of infinity, but the here-and-now perspective was the most practical vision for the question at hand.
I always tried to teach my students ways to apply our learning into their "real world." Unlike that trigonometry teacher who lied through his teeth, you DO use 5th and 6th grade math on a daily basis! We found examples of points, lines, and planes in the world around us. We learned that the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line and learned to connect lines to make line segments. We talked about how the end points were the start and finish of the line, but adding arrows reminded us that line segments have the ability to go on eternally, that what we see as a beginning and an end might just be one section of a much longer pathway. All of this led us to talking about maps, a logical, real world example of points and lines. The problem with a map is the same problem of taking something in a perfectly controlled environment out into the real world. On a map, there is not always a simple, straight line between 2 points. Sometimes there are many paths that connect one point to another. Sometimes, the most straight path is still under construction. Perhaps there is a detour. The road might twist and turn, circle back on itself, or pass through rough terrain. Topographical maps clearly show when a line--road--passes into another plane, thanks to hills, valleys, mountains, and bodies of water.
The real world is not always as easy as these points and lines seem in theory. There might also be several straight lines to follow that would all connect our points of interest, each with benefits and disadvantages, and we would have to choose a way and hope for the best. Even if the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, we are not always promised that our real world path will be a straight one. We are told the path will be STRAIT and narrow. {Matthew 7:14--Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.} The strait way is narrow and difficult, hard to see beyond, and easy to get lost in. But, the way is there. We are promised it. What seems STRAIT--narrow, difficult, and impossible to traverse in one perspective, actually becomes STRAIGHT--easy, short, and direct in an eternal view.
It's all about perspective because our A to Z beginning and end points go on with an eternal outlook. As you zoom in to the present, there are an infinite number of points on our path, an infinite amount of choices of possible lines on which to travel, an infinite number of stops and bumps in the journey, a never-ending road trip of life where we can't always see clearly which way to turn, or if we shouldn't turn at all. We never know when our transportation will break down, when the road might turn, when another car will impede our progress, when the speed limit will change, when a detour might appear, when a bridge is out ahead, when we need to make an unexpected stop for someone else, and so on. Also, in order to press forward with faith and endure to the end, we have to pass through B, C, D, E, F,...and so on until we reach the end with Z, but, often when we think we are at an end to something, we might be surprised that the journey continues on with AA, BB, CC,....etc. Trying to grasp this eternal concept with our limited, mortal view can be challenging. Perhaps that's why enduring to the end is so difficult--we get in our own way, and we have to learn how to walk more by faith than just by our mortal perspective because we don't know when we will reach the end. Even after each trial, we often can't see the end of it until it's already over. We never know if we will be strong enough to endure unless we make it through to the other side. Eternal perspective is what helps us evaluate our strength and our ability to stay on the path even when the way is rocky. Faith in the eternal nature of God and in following His path, though it lead us through the valley or up a steep mountain, is the only way to find the strait gate.
Eternal perspective seems so simple in theory! But, we live in earthly time, as imperfect beings, in the daily perspective of human reality. We don't have the ability to know when or how the path on the map of life will end. "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." {Matthew 24: 36} God is the only one who knows the end from the beginning, so we must learn to have an eternal perspective when it comes to our faith and understanding all the reasons why we are here or why we are enduring certain trials. We have to truly put our lives in God's hands and go forward, motivated by faith. However, the trouble with relying solely on an eternal perspective is that we also need a daily perspective to see the small steps of how to proceed in real time. If we ONLY live by the eternal--which is all just hope and faith--there can be a disconnect from sights to see, points of interest, knowledge to learn, relationships along the way, experiences, goals--all the small steps that connect within the journey to enrich our lives and help us reach to much more. There's a reason maps are made in different scales. It's nice to understand the beginning and end, to have an understanding of the ultimate goal, but if you simply rely on the eternal perspective--the map of the entire world or of the ever expanding universe as a whole--you're going to get lost in the middle of farm road Texas on your way to the big city and really be wishing your perspective was a bit more zoomed in so you could see the points right in front of you.
The trick in perspective goes back to balance. If we understand the eternal, our ultimate goals and purposes for this life, we can more easily grasp that there are reasons for the detours and pot holes in the road, even if we don't ever receive all the answers. The eternal perspective can always be in the back of our minds, whenever we need to refer to the overall plan. We can remain motivated by faith to keep on the path and can learn to react optimistically when troubles, trials, or temptations attempt to move us off course. We also need to use the perspective we gain from living and learning on a daily basis, enjoying the journey, taking in the sights and sounds and being able to focus on the small steps. We need to have an entire set of maps that can help us navigate on any scale, from the hallways of our local school, to the hiking trails in the neighborhood, a simple public transportation line map,
the multiple ways to get around an entire city,
from town to town in a state,
across the country,
around the world,
and even out into the universe. When the confusion and frustration and overwhelming feelings arise because of the troubles, traffic, and trials that can easily halt our progress and skew our perspective, we can always refer back to the master plan, using our "eyes to see" the eternal reasons for such learning experiences. The ability to change the focus of our perspective between the eternal and the day-to-day is what will truly help us to use that faith to find the paths that will help lead us to the strait and narrow way, all while feeling that our earthly difficulties really are bearable. Sometimes all that's needed is a shift in perspective.
