The trees form a canopy above you that block the rays of the sun....if there is even a sun. It is hard to tell if it is even day or night. The temperature is cool and damp and everywhere you look you see trees. Some trees are disfigured in appearance,
some are gnarled and twisted, some half green or dead. Many of them have hardly any leaves on them, some are tall and some are even dwarfed. 
You finally see some light, the trees begin to become scarce and before you realize you are stepping out of the forest. 
As you move away from the forest you turn around and things begin to look different. The forest isn't what it appeared to be at all. The dark gloom, filled with nasty, dead trees, appears a lot different now that you are looking at it with a different perspective. 
Individually the trees may be thin, think, dwarfed, tall or twisted but together they create something beautiful. 
As you move further away you begin to see something that you were not even aware of--a beautiful mountain. The sun is setting, the sky looks magnificent, and all of those trees together make up one beautiful picture.
This is a 'picture' of the "you can't see the forest for the trees" syndrome. It refers to our tendency to get caught up in the details thereby missing the important message in the bigger picture. Each tree, the dead one, the twisted one, the one with no leaves, could represent different struggles in our lives. It is so easy to ONLY see what we are struggling with and to miss the lesson, to miss the bigger picture of what God may be wanting to do, or just to forget that in view of eternity (the mountain) this is nothing.
I have such a tendency to get caught up in the small struggles of every day life. Some days I have hard time seeing that there will even be a tomorrow not even considering next year or most of all eternity.
Having a Christlike perspective is SO important but so hard to do. Wouldn't it be great if we could see that a struggle that we may have, for example, in our marriage, could be a great thing that could have an affect on generations to come?!
Maybe just maybe....if I choose to have a good attitude with something that may be difficult...that maybe it has NOTHING to do with me. Maybe I am only a tool that God is using to help my girls down the road make the right decision in their marriage, so their children can do the same. I am just one small person in the big, HUGE picture of God's story, who knows what God wants to use me for but I need to choose to be obedient and Christlike, so what kind of part am I going to play? Will I get stuck in the forest looking at a big dead tree or will I look for the mountain?!Let us not get stuck looking at the details of every struggle, attempting to analyze them and worry about them, instead let us keep the 'mountain' in our view. Let us get out of the forest, take a look at what is around us, in front of us and most importantly what is above us.
I know, I know...another LONG one. My 'family' blog seems to be turning into my online journal and I am sorry, but my gracious Father has just been turning my eyes inward so much over the past month or more and I am appalled with what I see.
I have really been seeing the deep, dark, and ugly parts of my heart and have been overwhelmed with how much change needs to come about. "Thank you FATHER that You are my help because I could never tackle this all on my own. "
(pictures above: Small looks at fall in New England from my backyard, the mountain picture is from the camp we worked at while living in NC--that was in my backyard, beautiful, huh? I add so many pics because I have a friend who gets lost in the words, the pictures help break it up for her and keep her interested :) )
