A friend of mine showed me this quote from Martin Luther yesterday. (I know he looks kind of intense in this picture, but hey, the guy started the Reformation. He probably had a lot on his mind.)
"And if we have encountered adversity in our lives, we dwell upon it as much as possible, magnify it, think that no one is so unhappy as we are, and imagine the worst possible consequences. In short, when we are alone, we think of one thing and another, we leap to conclusions and we interpret everything in the worst possible light. On the other hand we imagine that other people are very happy, and it distresses us that things go well with them and evil with us."
Zing! He got me. This is me to a tee, whenever I'm struggling or obsessing over something unpleasant in my life. I find it to be especially true when I am agonizing over my own personal shortcomings and weaknesses - my anxious tendencies, my insecurities and fears, my worries for the future. When I am alone, when I am thinking only of ME, I can imagine all of these things to be so enormous that they begin to feel almost insurmountable. And, I will admit, I begin to look around at everyone else ... at the people who seem to have it all together, who don't appear to struggle at all with the things that consume me. And therein lies the problem, I believe. I ASSUME that they don't struggle because they don't APPEAR to struggle. But I've noticed that when I am NOT alone, when I sit with a friend and share my heart and listen as she shares hers, I am reminded that everyone faces adversity - at different times and on different levels, to be sure, but we are all in this TOGETHER.
Lord, I pray that today You will help me take my eyes off myself. Show me how I can help someone else who is struggling and thank You for this reminder that none of us faces a trial that someone else out there hasn't faced as well.
