Dear Daughters,

About 70 years ago Grandpa had a mid-air collision while he was a young pilot living in California.  Because of the G.I. bill he was able to take lessons for free, so had been training for his pilot’s license.  One day Grandpa was flying quite low to the runway when another small plane, flying a little higher than his, turned unexpectedly into Grandpa’s path and cut off his tail in the process.  Grandpa’s plane flipped completely over and landed on its nose, leaving him hanging in his seatbelt.  He loosened his belt, dropped to the ground and walked away unharmed.

There were five different people who saw the accident.  Guess how many different opinions came when they were questioned about what happened?  Yes, five different opinions of the same accident.

It happens all the time, for any situation, statement or news report.  An incident occurs and every person perceives it with their own bias or prior knowledge and experience.  How we frame our circumstances definitely defines the way we live. 

This morning we woke up to a power outage lasting three hours. No warm breakfast or hot tea – a minor inconvenience for us, and it passed quickly.  But I’m sure it was a cause for extreme consternation to others who had things to do and places to go.  I immediately thought of the people in the Dominican Republic and other countries like it.  In the DR people plan on outages every day because different quadrants of the city are allowed so many hours of electricity each day and they simply allow for that fact, grateful when it is working.   

There are many different frames available for everything that happens to us.  We can frame a situation so we become the victim.  We can frame another happening so we are the hero.  Or we can frame a circumstance portraying us as innocent. The framing options never end…

Do you remember Paul, the guy who Jesus appeared to on the road to Damascus?  He regularly had his plans foiled and his journeys often included unexpected encounters and directions.  In fact, during the end of his life he and some friends set out to Rome, eagerly planning to spread the good news to the people there.  Instead, he ended up in prison, being chained night and day to the guards keeping watch over him.  In this situation Craig Groeschel (in Winning the War in Your Mind) describes the choices of how Paul could respond:

#1) Lament the fact of his imprisonment because it wasn’t on his agenda

#2) Rejoice because Paul trusted that God’s plan was better than his

If he had chosen option #1 he could have said:

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me really sucks.  I wanted to spread the good news through preaching to government officials, but that did not happen.  As a result of this hell I’ve been through I have decided prayer doesn’t work, and I am never going back to church again.

But because he trusted that God’s plan was better than his he chose option #2 and said:

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News.  For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ.  And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God’s message without fear.  Philippians 1:12-14

In effect, Paul was saying, I had a plan but God had a better plan.  These guards are listening to the gospel and they in turn tell others the good news.  So it’s all good, and I’ll just enjoy.

Paul was the GOAT (greatest of all time) framer of circumstances.  He found joy in every situation, in fact he is the one who wrote,

I have learned to be content in all circumstances…I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:11-13

I think the bottom line in framing our lives is knowing that we have no control over what happens to us, but we do have control over how we will frame it.  If we trust that God loves us and has the best plan for our lives, and the Spirit of God lives within us, we need not worry or fret when hard stuff happens.  Yes, we can mourn and lament but ultimately, we do have the choice to reframe every situation.

Apparently, Grandpa simply framed his accident as a learning experience because a few decades later he built his own plane and took to the sky again.

Choose well and trust God with your life.

Love, Mom