It's all about perspective...

Sometimes in life you feel like you have been dealt a horrible hand in cards. There are serious hardships we all face -- whether is with our health (or the health of our family/friends), our relationships (in our marriage, family or friends), our children, our finances, our employment (or lack thereof), etc. But, then that moment comes along to help you put it into perspective.

Today, I took our 1997 SUV into the mechanic to have the 'check engine' light looked at -- oh and the 'brake' light was on too -- oh and the 'air bag' light is lit too. Anything else wrong? So we go to a trusted, small mechanic who was referred to us through friends this past summer and he saved us $200 when fixing our exhaust piping. So, he took a look this morning and said to me, "well, your rubbing metal against metal on the brakes and it's not really even safe to drive out of here". Not exactly what I was hoping to hear -- I was hoping that I could make an appointment for next week, get a couple of other quotes and be settled with the fact that we either need to get new brakes or get a new car. Looks like there is no 'thinking' about anything at this point -- it's not safe to drive and I drive myself and 2 kids around all day, all week, every week. The grand total: $900 plus tax -- OUCH!

As my car sit in the shop getting new brakes I called around and got some verbal quotes: $1200 from another place -- okay, I guess $900 isn't so bad, right? Getting a 1997 vehicle services is like playing the lottery -- how long will the car last at this point, is it worth getting fixed just to have the engine blow next week (I hope I didn't just jinx myself!) or get it fixed and it will last us another year? We will pray for at least 6 months.

As I started feeling bad for myself -- such a large expense right before the holidays....what am I going to cut back on so we don't feel that $900 so much....how many more hours can I work to make up for that $900......

Then, I decided to go for a run and get a fresh perspective and boy, did God speak to me or what! As I was running, I saw a pregnancy test that someone threw out their window -- maybe they didn't get the answer they wanted? And then it came to me -- a fresh perspective -- the stress of $900 to fix the brakes on my car is nothing compared to the thought of an unplanned pregnancy at this point in my life and at this point in our family. Whether or not the owner of that pregnancy test wanted it to be positive or negative didn't matter to me -- what matter was that it wasn't my pregnancy test.

It's all about perspective....