Encouraging You to Shift Your Perspective from Loss to Appreciation

Give us five minutes, we’ll give you encouragement!

Transcript

0:00:04 - Heather

Welcome to Your Encouraging 5-Minute Podcast. You give us five minutes. We're going to give you some encouragement, because you know it can be hard to find encouragement, especially easy encouragement. So we're going to bring you some good news, some good encouragement, some good conversation for your day. 

0:00:19 - Eric

Yeah, and if you need more encouragement at the end of this podcast, you can always listen to WPER Virginia's Home for Encouragement. If you don't have the app, you could download that. Where you get your apps, just search WPER. God's love is an unstoppable force. I heard someone say that the other day and I'm like, oh, that's so true. It's far reaching. And when does God do his best work? This was the follow-up thought. His work is unstoppable. His love for us is unstoppable. 

0:00:50 - Heather

He does his best work when we're a mess and we don't know how to get out of it. 

0:00:54 - Eric

That's exactly what they said. In the moments where we feel lost or don't know what to do, that's when God is doing his very best work in our lives. 

0:01:03 - Heather

You know, and I think that's where that you know peace that passes all understanding. I think that's where it comes from, because unless you have been an absolute, total wreck, you don't understand how God can give you peace. I remember my mom. They thought she'd had a stroke and it turned out she did not have a stroke but she had a brain tumor and it was very fast growing. It was very aggressive and in five out she did not have a stroke but she had a brain tumor and it was very fast growing. It was very aggressive and in five weeks she passed. I had two very young children. I had a job, was taking care of my mother. My father had all but shut down. He could not handle what was happening and I had to do everything and it was so frustrating because I'm like God, I need a little help here. Yeah, but you know what? He was helping me more than I was able to see it, because people would go how are you so calm? 

0:01:50 - Eric

Yeah. 

0:01:51 - Heather

And I'm like I don't know. I really don't know, because this is not from me. 

0:01:56 - Eric

It's that peace of God that passes all understanding. And again, like you said, God was right there with you the whole time. 

0:02:01 - Heather

Yeah. 

0:02:02 - Eric

You know, picking up the pieces, helping me breathe, helping you to breathe. Take the next step. 

0:02:07 - Heather

There were points when I thought should I be freaking out Like? Should I be wailing and gnashing my teeth and crying and screaming? But I didn't want to do that because I did have this peace and I couldn't quite wrap my head around why. 

0:02:20 - Eric

When you wrap your head around God and all he does for us, you find out pretty quickly. It's not about everything being perfect in life or having all the answers. It's about knowing that, Even in those hard times where you feel lost or don't know what to do, that he is right there with us. 

0:02:38 - Heather

Yes. 

0:02:39 - Eric

Might be feeling like life is falling apart. You might be there right now, but know this that's not where the story ends. 

0:02:44 - Heather

No, no, and the story doesn't end at the bottom of the barrel. The story doesn't end in absolute trauma and freaking out and like horrible things falling all around you. There's even scripture that says gosh, when you can't see your way out, your story is not over. 

0:03:06 - Eric

How can you appreciate something more by losing some things?

0:03:09 - Heather

Yeah absolutely 100%. 

0:03:10 - Eric

When you think about it, like if you take objects out of a room one by one and this is not like trying to do spring cleaning or downsize or become a minimalist like me but if you take something out of a room, an item one at a time, what happens? This is a mind shift. Well, the first thing is you're going to miss those objects. But if you flip it around and really set your mind to it, you start to see that the stuff that you have left, the things in that room, all of a sudden are more valuable, so they take on different significance. 

A different significance. Your attention is now focused on what you have, not on what you don't have. 

0:03:49 - Heather

That's a huge shift. That's a huge shift and I know that would help huge shift and I know that would help. Like there were oh my goodness. As I said, my mom passed away very unexpectedly and it was a lot of months before I was past the. I've lost my mom. 

I've lost my mom. Like Mother's Day came around and I got mad. I was I'm just going to say I was mad at God. I was mad at my mom, like how could you do this? And my best friend in the whole world called me and she said you need to celebrate your children today because they have their mother. 

0:04:24 - Eric

And not that you didn't appreciate your children before, but perhaps but it was the perspective shift, and you may have appreciated them even more after she was gone, and that's the thing that I was reading. More after she was gone, and that's the thing that I was reading. It's like when stuff is taken away, whether it be a person or just a job or any situation in life, once it's gone, accept it, grieve, if you have to. 

Of course you have to in most instances when something is missing or gone from your life, but then the perspective changes. I appreciate more now that, whether it be in a new position that God has gifted you, or the people in your life that you still have in your life, you appreciate them more. Well, we hope you've been encouraged today. Thank you for listening to your encouraging five-minute podcast. 

0:05:08 - Heather

Yep, so we're Eric and Heather and we really do hope you have been encouraged. And if you'd like some more encouragement, you are always welcome to listen to WPER Virginia's home for encouragement. But if you're outside the listening area, you can always listen through your smart speaker or download the WPER app.