Transit Perspective

' "You see the bigger picture" when you look through the telescope at the heavens, he said. "You don't get so stressed out by living when you realize that we're just this little speck in space." ' That quote was taken from a USA Today article about the many people who took the time and effort to watch the recent Transit of Venus across the sun. The gentleman quoted was identified as a neurosurgeon. What a perspective to have when you are responsible for people's lives! What a perspective to offer them as they face whatever difficulties have brought them to a neurosurgeon.
Years ago I remember my two older children coming home from elementary school in the middle of an argument. Evidently, they had started arguing on the bus and the whole bus heard about it. Of course, I can't remember a thing about the argument now, and if I asked them they probably wouldn't remember it at all.  I was mortified at the time, so disappointed and embarrassed that they would have it out in a public place rather than keeping it quiet and talking, or fighting, about it at home.  I saw it as a reflection on my parenting and felt like a total failure. But as I thought it over and prayed as best as I could in the midst of my mortification, I had a mental picture of the whole earth and then the picture zoomed down until it was a picture of my kids on the bus. Suddenly, the whole thing didn't seem like such a big deal. We talked about it and then it was over.
So often as we face our daily difficulties, or even our larger, more profound difficulties,we get "stressed out". The issue that is troubling us can seem like the most important thing in the world at that moment. Maybe it would be good to keep a photo of the Transit of Venus somewhere to remind us of the larger perspective.
My recent difficulties have not been the kind that put one in "survival mode", although I have experienced those as well. Whether in "survival mode" or daily inconveniences, over the years I have learned to remember that in the larger picture of life these things are just a small speck in transit.  Whatever trial I am going through will come to an end, even the ones that have seemed to last for years. At the very end, when my life is over, my life will be that little speck in transit. Then the transit will be over and I will have a permanent Home elsewhere. Keeping that in mind helps me keep the difficulties of my life in transit perspective.

Dear One, whatever you are going through right now is a speck in transit. I don't mean to minimize your difficulty. A life-threatening illness or financial catastrophe caused by job loss or a fluctuating stock market are not small troubles, nor are the emotional difficulties of strained relationships or personal loss. What I mean to say is that when you and I keep a transit perspective on the larger and smaller difficulties of life it helps us to pass through them knowing that there will be an end and to keep that end in view rather than the trouble of the moment.