This is my temporary home

"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.'  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." - James 4:13-14 (NIV)

As I sit here writing today I've once again been hit with one of THOSE days.  You know, one of those days with circumstances of life that pop up, usually when you least expect it, and leave you wondering just how you're supposed to deal with it.

In my life, the problems that tend to eat at me are the ones I can't control.  The things I want so badly to fix or change but I cannot, no matter how much time or effort I may spend in trying.  I'm a "fixer" by nature so these are things with which I don't do well.

Sometimes a relationship is broken and can't be fixed.  Sometimes the phone rings in the middle of the night.  Sometimes we receive a terminal diagnosis.  The store closes.  A child dies.  A spouse walks away.

So what in the world am I supposed to do when life throws something at me that I can't change?  As I process this in my own life, I thought I'd share what I'm learning.  Here are my thoughts:

1) Accept that you can't change it.   Seems obvious, but so often we get stuck in ruts in life, or get dragged into depression, because we absolutely refuse to stare reality in the face.  There are just some things that cannot be changed, no matter what we do.  While we can continue to pray for God to intervene, we have to accept that we are otherwise powerless to change things.  There is freedom that comes with acceptance.

2) Forgive yourself.  Sometimes we find ourselves in circumstances that we ourselves have created, and no matter what we say or do, we can't undo what we've done.  We can get stuck in a continuous cycle of beating ourselves up over things like that.  Dwelling on what we should have or could have done differently, etc.  As an ice-queen once said, let it go!  Hanging onto your past mistakes only gives power to them, and will keep you from a brighter future.  Refuse to allow your past to have that power over you.

3) Focus on what you CAN control.  You can control your attitude.  You can control the way you treat those around you.  You can control the way you respond to adversity.  Instead of focusing on what can't be controlled/changed/fixed, focus on what you CAN do.  It's empowering.

4) Remember it's all temporary.  Carrie Underwood has a great song about this.  In the chorus she says, "This is my temporary home, it's not where I belong.  Windows and rooms that I'm passing through.  This is just a stop on the way to where I'm going.  I'm not afraid, because I know this is my temporary home."

If like me you believe what God's Word says-that this world is NOT our home-there's peace in that.  Everything that happens in this life is preparing us for the REAL life ahead of us, the one to come.  Eternal life.  When we view our circumstances in this sinful, broken world through the lens of eternity, our perspective changes.  A terminal diagnosis becomes an opportunity to prepare our hearts and the hearts of others for what's to come.  A dream that slips through our fingers becomes an opportunity to grab on tighter to God and those we love.  Being hurt or abandoned by someone we thought cared about us becomes an opportunity to be reminded that there is One who will never leave us or forsake us.  One day the things that seemed so overwhelming for us here will be a distant memory and they will have no power over us.  It's all about perspective.

So as I sit here, tempted to be consumed by the circumstances I cannot control, that's what I'm choosing to focus on.  Even just writing these things, on another gloomy June day here in northeast Ohio, has made my day a little brighter.  Thanks for listening!