Find your "with" side!

    Lately I have really been thinking about my place in this world and how God uses each and everyone of us, not just for Him, but for each other... After saying goodbye to my boys I started to see everyone and everything differently. It's like my eyes were switched out with a different pair, and I started seeing things I never knew existed. After so many years of seeing other moms with their babies and thinking, "they don't know how blessed they are to be a mother to a healthy, much less alive, baby",  God switched around my thinking... I don't blame anyone for not knowing the pain of being on the "without" side of life, but instead I started becoming compassionate about other's and tried to see the "with" side of life I was on. One day I was at CVS buying a birthday card when I saw a young pregnant couple doing the same... As I watched them I remembered the joy of knowing a child was coming into your life and thought, "if they only knew what it felt like for me to see them and know what I really ended up enduring instead..." Then I thought there must be tons of people out there looking at other's, even at me and thinking the same thing but about different things. For example, you may be having an outing with your mother one day and you never know who's on the other side watching you and thinking, "if she only knew how blessed she is to be with her mother", because I lost mine years ago. Or someone who can no longer walk, looking at you sitting down because your sick of walking, and they would do anything to take one more step again... Be careful what you say and what you complain about because I guarantee you wouldn't want to fully be without whatever current "annoyance" you may be complaining about. It may be your crying baby (grieving mother), your aching feet (paraplegic), your long, "tanglely" hair (chemo patient), nagging mom (orphan), or yes even your immature husband (widower), for every ability and person in your life is a blessing and someone knows the pain of being without.
    I've really come to realize it's not about what God thinks you can handle, it's about what God knows you can choose to do with it that brings Him glory and makes other's appreciate what God has blessed them with in their life. So next time your faced with a painful struggle in life, don't focus on what your living without but what your living WITH... and give God glory. Sometimes others are hurting in order for you to heal and become more grateful, so don't feel sorry for them, but make yourself better because of them.