by Harriet Hairston

I watched a vignette from Vince Vujicic on youtube, and had to check myself.   I’ve seen inspirational speakers like him before, with one or more disabilities, but his words managed to speak beyond my personal despair to the heart of the matter:

In life, ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING.

Even Jesus could not help me when my attitude was dead set on feeling sorry for myself.   I believe His Holy Spirit drew me back to Him, but in order for that to happen, it required one thing on my part:

CHECK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YOURSELF.

That said, Mr. Vujicic mentioned eight things I had forgotten or refused to focus upon during my funky time of inviting everyone in the world to my pity party.   Amazingly, I checked myself about these very things over the weekend, and then saw this video on Monday.

These eight simple truths provided to me by the Holy Spirit (and backed up by the words of Mr. Vujicic) really brought me back to my senses:

1.   Stop concentrating on what you don’t have and focus on what you DO have.   My husband called me out about this often, because I was focused on the negatives instead of the positives for a long period of time.

2.   Be grateful at all times.   I pray I never have to learn that lesson by losing both my arms and legs.   But watching Mr. Vujicic’s zest for life in this short vignette really helped me put things in perspective in terms of gratitude.

3.   You are good enough, and your value is priceless.   I think a lot of people–women especially–tend to belittle themselves in their own eyes to guard against being belittled in the sight of others.   But life, to a great extent, is driven by our viewpoint of ourselves.   Humility is an awesome characteristic, but so is a love for self.

4.   When you don’t know when the storm will end, smile anyway.   This is what I like to call, “Faith it till you make it.”   I’ve found that faking it until then is counterproductive, but applying faith and smiling in the midst of the storms life throws our way allows our perspective to shift to the good, not the bad.

5.   Patience is mandatory.   Many times when I create a plan, I forget to set aside time for the plan to work.   I get impatient, and then find myself making decisions or commitments that put a wrench in my original plan.   I’m tired of doing that, and have decided to give my plans time to work.

6.   Learn how to hold hearts, not just hands.   When I write, I always try to reach the hearts of the readers, and in order to do so, I have to be as real and transparent as possible.   The same holds true in the world before me.   My mother-in-love asked me over the weekend, “How did you manage to be so successful in the military when you led such a sheltered life?”   She was calling me out about how important it is to be real–compassionate and loving, but still real–in conflict resolution.   In that short conversation, I learned how important it was to allow what’s really going on in my heart to be heard, and how to express it in a way that will still reflect the love I have towards another person.

7.   You are beautiful and gorgeous (for the women).   You are THE MAN (for the men).   No matter how much weight you have gained or lost, no matter how who you are and what you do have been challenged, your value is priceless, and what you have to contribute to the world through your life is incalculable.

8.   You can conquer every challenge that comes before you! It’s all about the attitude you employ when the challenges arise.