Perspective - All That Glitters Is Not Gold

From the time I was two years old until I was six, my dentist was Dr. Yelverton. I don’t know how Mama found him, but I loved him to pieces. I was never afraid of him – probably because he never hurt me – and I always liked going to his office. The very best part was when each visit was finished. Dr. Yelverton had a giant box of rings in his office and he would let me pick through them until I found exactly what I wanted. He always let me get two. He was feeding my ring-aholic habit and didn’t even know it. So, on one of my trips, Dr. Yelverton let me sit in the floor of his office with that big box of rings and I found the PERFECT ring almost immediately.

Except for me, nobody liked it. My brother said it was ugly. Mama tried to persuade me to get something “prettier.” But I wouldn’t budge. It was easily the most beautiful ring I had ever seen and I was not about to part with it. You wouldn’t either, I bet. It was a shiny silver plastic skull with red rhinestone eyes. It was gorgeous. I thought those “rubies” were stunning and I was absolutely certain that I would never find anything to rival it. I was right, too. Dr. Yelverton took up for me and said he thought it was a great choice and he wouldn’t mind having one himself. I’m sure he was just trying to get rid of the thing, but it certainly impressed me that we had the same taste in fine jewelry.

It looked kind of like this:

Sometimes it is just all about perspective. It’s how we choose to look at things. That ugly old skull ring was everything I ever wanted in a ring – shiny and sparkly – who cares that it was a skull?! We can see the one pothole or the rest of the road that’s smooth. Every journey – yours and mine – has its ups and downs. Some ups are better than others and some downs are worse, but all in all, it’s how we react that matters. We can go it alone and struggle and be scared. Or we can just give it to God and let Him guide us through.

For some reason, this journey of mine includes cancer. It’s what I ended up with, so God is helping me deal with it. I’m okay with that. More than okay. I’m learning every day that trusting God is the only way to go. And this could be worse – much, much worse! I am incredibly thankful for a loving God who never lets me go and sends what I need just when I need it. He will do it for you, too. As special as I would like to think I am – YOU are just as special to Him.

And, for the record, Daddy understood my obsession with that ring, even if he didn’t think it was a great choice on my part. He used to say that when it came to buying presents, I was the easiest person in the world to shop for. He said that if something was colorful, shiny, or made noise that I would be happy with it. Still an accurate assessment after all these years. By the way, I never really noticed the skull – I only saw the rubies and the silver! Perspective.

Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal. Isaiah 26:4