Confronting My Attitude

As I struggle to put my life back together and learn how to rely on my Savior for help, I notice that my attitude has the tendency to change almost as frequently as the wind direction. Working in a kitchen is stressful for me with the constant pressure of delivering quality results as fast as possible and never seeming to be able to do enough to keep up or even feeling like I was doing a good enough job. For a perfectionist like me, it spiked my stress meter from the moment I walked in until the moment I walked out. No doubt about it, my attitude showed that stress as I portrayed an aura of "just leave me alone, stay out of my way, and let me get this done". When I suffered a setback in any area that I was really looking forward to, it made things even worse.

Recently, I had the opportunity to change jobs, and it's got a lot of potential for financial gain as well as great flexibility and diversity to keep it interesting. Suddenly, I was able to deal with the stress of work and handle it with a smile... even joy. Why in the world was I able to experience that happiness in the midst of the stress that caused me such misery just days earlier?

One word: hope.

Like a switch had been flipped, there was something beyond the current struggle to look forward to. I wasn't just going to be a cook anymore. My job would be something that I could be proud of. Hope does amazing things to a person's attitude. It fills us with the ability to overcome almost anything, yet so many of us live without any apparent hope in our lives. We also see the effects through the disappointment of hopes that fail to come to fruition. It can sour a person as much as hope realized can lift it. It's also possible to simply become numb and refuse to hope in anything to avoid the pain that disappointment brings.

Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that "I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future."

Sometimes the hope of eternal life with Christ seems impossibly far away, but what I love about this verse is that we are reminded that God has plans for us here as well, plans that give us hope. That hope leads to joy. We're all going to struggle, and that pain may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalms 30:5). All we need to do is admit that we can't do this on our own and remember to seek Him for peace and the hope of a bright future.