From the Inside Out

Long ago one of my cousins (Alice, I think) knitted her brother a sweater for Christmas, and had almost finished it by the end of November when the extended family gathered for Thanksgiving.  However, the sweater had turned out much too big, and Alice was stymied how to downsize it.

“Give it to me,” suggested Aunt Orsie, the most skilled knitter in the group.  “I think we can fix that.”  As she chatted away the afternoon with the other aunts and older cousins, Aunt Orsie helped Alice take apart the sweater, undo the extra rows, snip, knit, and bind off the shortened rows until the sweater had miraculously shrunk to proper proportions.  (That terminology and order of steps is likely inaccurate—I’m not a knitter!)

Alterations make a significant difference, and not only in the way clothing fits.  As we know, standard counter height can be altered to accommodate those especially short or tall, and the print in books can be altered to accommodate the visually impaired.

Some alterations, however, are much more challenging to accomplish—even more difficult than downsizing a sweater.  Take attitudes, for example.  How do we alter negativity into positivity, a critical spirit into grace, discouragement into hope, or frustration into gratitude?

Here are a few possibilities:

Negativity can be altered by a different viewpoint.

Poet Langston Hughes wrote:

How altered our attitude could be if we searched for the rainbows and refused to focus on the dust of life.

A critical spirit can be altered by truth.

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the family on a beach vacation.  While building a sandcastle their first day, the children spotted an old woman wearing a faded dress and floppy hat, bent over and mumbling to herself as she approached.  Every now and then she picked bits out of the sand and put them in a burlap bag.  

Though the children called hello to her, the woman didn’t respond.  She appeared lost in her own world. The parents watched warily, expressed their doubts about her mental state and a hotel that would allow her on their premises. They warned the children to stay away from her.

Each day the woman combed the beach, muttering and plucking as she went.  Finally the family asked the concierge if he knew about this strange woman.

“Oh yes,” he said.  “That’s Mrs. Thompson, a retired schoolteacher who lives up the road. She’s made it her mission to rid this section of beach of anything that might cut people’s feet, and while she walks, Mrs. Thompson prays for the people nearby.  No doubt she prayed for you!”

Discouragement can be altered by hope.

And in what do we hope? 

• The promises of God
• The development of our character, growing us into our best selves
• The fact that God executes good plans even through our suffering 
• That for those of us who know Jesus, the best is always ahead*

We know these routes to hope; it’s the determination to take them that requires our diligence.

Frustration can be altered by appreciation.

Sometime during our younger son’s toddler days, he scribbled on several pages of my Bible–splotchy eyesores among my straight-edge underlinings and carefully written comments. 

As the years went by, however, when I’d encounter one of those scrawls, my response completely altered.  “Aw, there’s one of Jeremy’s notes,” I’d smile, remembering the rambunctious and ever cheerful little boy he once was, just trying to be like Mommy and Daddy.

My frustration not only disappeared but became appreciation.

No matter the attitude that needs altering there is a means to transform it.   We can snip away at undesirable attitudes (like negativity and a critical spirit) with proper perspective and truth.  We can bind off the damage of harmful emotions (like discouragement and frustration) with hope and gratitude.

Most beneficial of all, we can invite God to miraculously shrink our erroneous ways of thinking until we’re good and pleasing to him.

What attitude-alteration have you witnessed or experienced?  Please share in the comment section below!  

* See the previous post, Promises Kept as well as Romans 5:3-5 and 1 Corinthians 2:9.

Photo credits: http://www.maxpixel.net; http://www.canva.com; http://www.quotefancy.com; Nancy Ruegg; http://www.canva.com.

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