Fence? What Fence? I Don’t See A Fence.

We all walk through life experiencing many negative things.  Don’t blame yourself for concentrating on negative issues.  Negativity is promoted just about everywhere we look.  I bet you can visit one of your favorite news website and find a message easily categoriZed as negative.  I’m not saying the world and the events that take place are negative…it’s more of focusing on the negative attributes of the event.  Why?  It’s easy to focus on the negative.  The real challenge, however, is to surgically extract the positive from each experience.  It may be the size of a mustard seed when compared to the experience as a whole but it’s still positive and we need to re-calibrate our focus in order to see in positive-vision.

My deployments in the military have taken me to places that I couldn’t wait to leave.  During the beginning one of my recent deployments all I concentrated on was how could I get on the next flight leaving.  That thought pattern quickly infected me and lead to a disposition of melancholy.  My vision was that of the picture below.  I took this picture on one of my deployment to show my family how we lived with perimeter sensor barbed wire fence, Constantine wire along the roads, and concrete barriers everywhere.

One day I woke up and decided that I needed to change.  I wasn’t sure what change needed to be made but I knew something had to be done.  All day I ponDered on the thought of change.  The day was almost over and I still didn’t have the answer to my question.  I put my head down to think then I raised it so I could watch the sun set.  It was a beautiful warm glow and my feelings of despair seem to fade away.  The fence, the wires, and the concrete barriers also faded away.  The moment I let go was the moment I found my answer.  I had to be thankful…I had to give thanks for my circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18 – take some time and do the research).  I found my mustard seed of positivity by changing my view on things…by focusing beyond the negativity I was experiencing.  When will you focus beyond your fence…your barbed wire…your concrete barriers?