In the den of the home in which I grew up in North Carolina was a picture that always made me feel gloomy. The den itself, perhaps a smaller version of today’s great room, was a happy place where we children studied and all members of the family played games or listened to the radio. Yet, that one picture made me want to look the other way.
Imagine my surprise one day when I walked into the den and found that Mother had bought a new frame, and the entire picture seemed appealing. Actually, the picture hadn’t changed, but the new frame caused me to see it with a new perspective.
Individually, we can reframe our lives. The difficult places may remain, but if we reframe the situation, we begin to see possibilities. In Isaiah 43:19, God says, “Behold I am doing a new thing. Lo, it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?”
One of the reasons we don’t reframe is that we stay focused on what we have lost, or fear the future or the hurt, and don’t look for the new thing God is doing. My current situation is a good example – compound fractures in my right leg from a fall on the ice, requiring weeks of therapy. Like the picture on the wall, the situation looked gloomy and unhappy.
Only when I accepted the facts of the situation, instead of fighting it and asking “Why?” could I see new possibilities – meeting new and interesting people, finding I can meet more physical challenges in therapy than I believed possible, even receiving an idea for a new book. The choice was mine. I could whine or reframe. I chose the latter (most of the time).