Perception + Truth= Perspective

There are a lot of benefits to going on a mission trip.  Not the least of which is that a mission trip gives you perspective.

While I was in China with Bring Me Hope, my family group made these bracelets out of torn bandanas that we colored together.  I am still wearing mine today because when I look at it, I am reminded of those girls and where they are now, and suddenly I have perspective.

I came home from China to a myriad of challenges- my home needed a week's worth of catch up, our refrigerator went out, we had some not so smooth transitions going on at work, my hours (and thus income) was cut in half because of those transitions, I was in a car wreck this week, and the list goes on.  Every time I have a moment that threatens to take my joy, I look at my bracelet and suddenly I have perspective.

This equation came to me the other day.  PERCEPTION + TRUTH= PERSPECTIVE.  You see we can live our lives based on our perception of our environment (and it may never be good enough) OR we can permeate that perception with the truth of how fortunate we really are and suddenly we have perspective.

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For those friends and family who come here just for pics of the kiddos, I have a few pictures here from my trip with Ruthie to Kemah to play in the spray fountain.  Little did I know that a major storm was heading our way.  So we played in it anyway with water shooting up from the fountain and falling down from the sky.  This place is normally filled with hundreds of people and on that rainy day we were there with less than 20.  For you photographers, these were all taken through my SLR water proof bag.