Yesterday morning it was time for me to read Lesson 2 in the Thin Within workbook. I have to admit that I wasn’t very excited. In spite of how God used last week’s lesson in a fresh way, I still approached this week’s lesson with skepticism. Hard heart. The desert of my heart was evident. Sadly, though, I didn’t find myself longing for life-giving water. I longed more for my bed, I guess. I prayed that God would do a new thing–cause me to see His truth afresh…then, I proceeded to scrutinize and criticize (and other “ize-ing”) as I read. (This is one drawback to having been involved in the writing of the TW book and workbook…)
As I began Week 2 Day 1 exercises in the workbook, I was really thrown for a loop. Relative to 1 Corinthians 6:18: “You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body…” I was asked “Do you see your body as honoring to God?”
For some reason, this totally flattened me. Why, after all God has done, am I not able to answer with a resounding “YES”?
I am still, a full day later…reeling over this realization. In my head, I know that God has chosen to indwell me with His Shekinah glory. My body was purchased by Him for His chosen dwelling place on earth. Period. That is the fact.
So, why don’t I *feel* like my body honors God?
I have to think this is likely an issue of belief rooted in my past.
I am seeking God to show me what this is about. If it is because of current sin, I want to know that. It seems strange that I might not know the difference between conviction of the HOLY Spirit, and condemnation and accusation of the UNHOLY enemy.
I mentioned previously that Quick and Simple magazine might be running a feature on yours truly. Last week I got a call and the article was in the final stages of being edited and re-edited. They had contacted the photographer who took the pictures for the FIRST article last fall and were investigating getting permission to use those photos.
The next thing I knew I received an email saying the editors pulled the article. Cancelled it. Killed it. It won’t be printed.
Believe it or not (I don’t!), my first reaction was actually heartfelt compassion and discouragement for the writer who had worked on and off for months on this article! She had waded through pages of my testimony, spoken with me on the phone, only to be told they weren’t interested in it (she freelances). Then the editors had changed their minds months later…she had worked and worked on it yet again…and in the last hour she was told it was off. All her work seemed to be for nothing.
Being a writer myself, I know that must have been excrutiatingly disappointing. I have labored over a work before only to have it die…be left forever on my hard drive and never see the pages of…anything. So I really understand.
From my perspective…funny, but I actually feel that God has done me a *favor*…given the things I have struggled with, the pride, the focus on ME and “MY” success…all the things I have shared here previously…Yes, He definitely did me a favor!
A part of me wants to apologize to the writer and let her know that it is my fault…not the fault of the editors–that if I had been able to give God glory while the world gave me the attention, had I been faithful to keep pointing to Him, maybe God would have chosen to let this article meet the pages of a national magazine. But it wasn’t His timing for me. There are many things I have yet to learn…
When Christ died he purchased for you the Yes to all God’s promises (2 Cor. 1:20)…
This is an amazing statement.
John Piper goes on to say: “He is doing a thousand things for you and for his glory in your disappointed plans.”
Perhaps I should share this with the writer of the article-that-will-never-be-printed. I know I feel hope, anticipation…there is something so much better ahead than the “glory” of seeing “my” story splashed across the full-color pages of a national magazine.
It is quite astonishing to know and believe that the “no” from the world is actually God’s divine “Yes.”
I have already been so encouraged by the time I have spent learning or reviewing God’s attributes and “behaviors” that I thought I would share some of this with you.
I know some who land on this blog have done a Search Engine search for “mini bible study” so here is one that I hope encourages those web wanderers that land here and also for those of you who are traveling this Thin Within journey along with me–which is really nothing other than the road toward increasing Christ-likeness!
1. Open your bible to Psalm 145 or use this link to land on it at Bible Gateway in the New International Version.
2. Read prayerfully and slowly, listing everything that God does or is from this chapter of scripture. Include writing the verse reference next to it. The first two that I got from this are done below:
God is my King (vs. 1) (Note: I can deepen this study by writing out under this point what this means to me…what it means for God to be King.)
God is praise worthy (vs. 1, 2, 3)
And so on…Your turn! Complete the list throughout the entire psalm.
3. List the things that psalmist says HE will do or others who see God as He is will do!
4. Go back through your list and do what it says! In faith, pray thanking God for these things. For example:
God thank you that you are my King, that you are the one before whom I bow, that you are worthy of all praise and devotion.
Even if you don’t *feel* like these things are true, His Word says it, so they are true. Praying them back to God has an amazing ability to do wonderful things in our lives. We get lifted up when we lift HIM up.
5. If you struggle with a repetitive sinful behavior such as overeating, bulimia, anorexia, sexual strongholds, spending, hiding in online chat groups, forums, etc., and you know that God is calling YOU to live the abundant life of rising above all of this, how can doing what we did in questions 1 through 4 above help in some way? Invite God right now to show you.
In other words, what does doing the above have to do with fighting the tendency to over-eat or releasing extra weight?
I hope that you discover these very things as you do this activity.
** For extra study and enjoyment of God and His Word, do the same with any of the Psalms. To get you started: Psalm 63, and Psalm 73:23-28
*** PLEASE post a comment here if you like telling me and others who visit how God uses this in your life, insights you glean, etc. Others can be ministered to through YOU! 🙂
Wow. God just keeps blowing me away. Grace in action. He is such a gracious, loving, merciful God.
Weds. night, Julie F. and I began our new online support group at the Thin Within website. We had quite a group show up for our first chat! It was WONDERFUL!
Yesterday morning, I knew I, too, needed to open my workbook and “do” the material that I have encouraged all the group members to complete. My words to them Monday night had something to do with “Even if you have done the workbook several times before, believe that God is doing a new thing right now! Go through it with a fresh heart, believing that God will meet you in a new way! Invite Him to do so!”
I have seen God do that with me before with Thin Within material, but I guess I just wasn’t sure He would pull it off again :-/. I don’t know why…There it is again! “Oh me, of little faith!”
Even after saying that to the group, I felt a bit…well, “Ho Hum” about doing the workbook…*again* yesterday morning. It is SO familiar. What I really wanted was to work in my Beth Moore Stepping Up study. But I figured I would get to that after I hustled my way through the reading of Lesson 1 in the Thin Within workbook.
First, I spent some time journaling a prayer to God to help me see the material in a new way. Then, I began to read Lesson 1 and God gave me an “assignment.” To those of you with the Thin Within quarter one workbook, I challenge you, the readers of this blog, with the same “assignment:”
Go through Lesson 1. Read and highlight, circle or underline everything that is said about God’s character–what He is like or what He does. Write down a list of all of these character qualities or behaviors in a journal. If there are verses, write them down (look them up, too!). Then next to all of these, write down if you believe them or not–REALLY believe them! Use this list (and keep adding to it as you go through the workbook for the next 3 months) to pray in faith, “God, I thank you that you do the impossible. Thank you that you embrace me and are doing a new thing in me. Thank you that your grace is immeasurable and steadfast.” If you struggle with believing any of the things you have written down, pray a prayer of confession and ask God to help you to believe these things about Him in a new way.
As I began to do this…oh wow…I sensed His power and His presence in such a mighty way, it was like I could touch Him! Like FEEL that embrace, literally!
I continued to bask in His presence as I left to go on a trail ride with my best horse. Mercy Me was playing in my truck…This video (by someone else) plays the song that I listened to…the words really became me…or I became the words. God was so ver present it was almost overwhelming! (In a good way!)
If you can take the time to listen to the song all the way through, I hope you will do that. It is so powerful. The words to the song are here.
It struck me so powerfully…I was truly caught up in God’s beauty, just as the song says.
But then, suddenly, God gave me an amazingly powerful *contradictory* image. Yes, I was swept off my feet by Him in this moment. But He showed me what happens when I am not.
He showed me what I have often done…replacing the object of my devotion. This may sound so silly, but he showed me what it would be like if the music that was playing was sung to what I sometimes focus on, sometimes surrender to–as if the music was sung to the pizza, or the chocolate muffin, or the hot fudge sundae…Picture it with me…
I sit down, grinning ear to ear at my dining table, eyes GLUED to the food, heart fixated on the tasty morsels landing on my taste buds:
“I can feel your presence here with me…(singing to the food…)
Suddenly I’m lost within your beauty… (this breaks my heart…)
Caught up in the wonder of your touch (on my lips and the taste),
Here in this moment I surrender to your love…”
How often have I surrendered to the “love” of food?
This broke my heart…but God showed me this so tenderly. I did *NOT* feel shamed. He doesn’t use shame. It is His kindness that leads me to repentance…
I felt…well… “educated.” I felt like he “enlightened” me, pulled back the curtain, as it were, to expose (there it is again) the truth. But, again, he showed me truth with the perfect balance of grace.
And just as quickly as that vision of my sin came upon me, it left and He restored me with an awareness of HIM. HIS beauty. HIS majesty. I was caught up again by the “wonder of His touch.”
I can tell you for SURE, the two do NOT begin to compare.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
– Psalm 73:25-26
Thank you, Lord, for a vision, just a taste of your amazing presence. Oh, God, it really does make me fall down to my knees like the song says…And thank you for showing me so clearly, just what I have been doing when I allow food to have my affection…I have “surrendered” to it. Thank you that, in each moment, I have a choice. I can choose to surrender to your love. I can surrender to your grace. I can surrender to the One who took my place. Let me not forget. Oh, God…thank you. In the matchless name of Jesus, Amen.
I am going to date myself. Do you remember the song from the 70s, sung by Roberta Flack, “Killing Me Softly?”
Have you ever felt like someone has been reading your journals and is talking to YOU or, worse — others— about what is there? Or that someone knows even the unspoken, unwritten…maybe unspeakable things in your heart…is bringing them to the surface…exposing you?
That is how I felt last weekend when I spent some time watching video Session Two of Stepping Up by Beth Moore.
Beth was in my home via my laptop and Windows Media Center. The morning was quiet – sunlight flooding my bedroom through the tree-framed, glass door. My golden retriever (psycho) dog was earnestly standing guard to prevent the reflections and shadows from causing any harm. All normal things, on normal mornings…
As Beth drew me in to the video session focusing on the Feast of Unleavened Bread and its applicability to my life, rather than Don McLean (who “Killing Me Softly” was written about), it was the Lord who was “strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words, killing me softly with His song…”
“Hidden Hypocrisy…” How did she know? How did Beth know that, like the symbolic gesture of holding back a little bit of “dough from a former baking,” I, too, had been holding something back, not ridding myself of ALL the yeast in my life. Like the fermented dough “hidden” in the flour, this tiny little bit seemed so harmless…but it had been working its way through everything, affecting all of it…
From the human, worldly perspective, from all outward appearances, I, Heidi Bylsma, have been a “Thin Within Success Story.” (Can you hear the tooting of the proverbial horns!?) In fact, my “success” has been proclaimed from the rooftops — literally, even in a national magazine. With more on tap this summer…
Mud on my face!
FIRST magazine ran a feature last December.
To add to my chagrin (the timing is oh-so-interesting), the July/August issue of Health magazine will include an article on “Mindful Eating,” including possibly a paragraph about my testimony with Thin Within. Quick and Simple’s August issue may have a feature on yours truly…(unless the Lord says otherwise, and He may…) Announcing yet again, “Here I am world!” “Look at me!” “God has done a new thing in me!” (More tooting of those horns…the head getting ever larger…)
Yet here I sit as I type this entry, wearing my “skinny jeans,” wondering if these well-worn, well-used, Levi 550s have *shrunk* some more (hmmm….no, I don’t imagine so after being washed at least 100 times!). Yes, they feel uncomfortably snug around the waist. :-/ But worse, there is a knowing that:
I am not as I claim.
Hidden Hypocrisy….
When did I let it become all about the outside—even while claiming it was about so much more? When did it stop being about GOD and being about ME?
I was challenged in my Beth Moore Stepping Up lesson yesterday, too. Have I begun to trust more in God’s blessings than in God himself?
Exposed again.
The “package” may look so different than it did in 2006, but the lusts are still there! (Or are there — again!) I may not indulge them as often as I used to, but in so many ways the “inner me” feels like it is still in need of being transformed by the renewing of my mind. I guess it does. *I* do.
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me…
The out-of-the-blue realization that I am blatantly something other than what I intentionally lead people to believe followed an email exchange with a dear friend…where I claimed (again) to live with integrity. I alleged that I would never do something hidden. I claimed to be authentic, genuine, what-you-see-is-what-you-get. “And durn proud of it, too…” (Toot toot toot…)
Hidden Hypocrisy…
If these things are true, then why, when Beth began to speak about “hidden hypocrisy,” did I feel so exposed? Why did I want to hide? (Hmm…a pattern emerges.)
Would I really want anyone who reads this blog, or my church friends, or my family to know me? What I am thinking? What I am…eating? Would I want any of those who “admire” me, “respect” me, who feel I am an “inspiration,” to see that the scale has nudged up in recent weeks? To know about the vacancy of my prayer life?
Hidden Hypocrisy…
And what is with ME ME ME making a You Tube video talking about the three phases of Thin Within and speaking about “discernment” and “mastery” — phase 2 and phase 3 — when I live SOLIDLY in phase 1…not just some of the time, but most of the time…without any desire to even let God change me? “God will remake your tastebuds!” Well, good grief. I sure can preach it, but there it is again…faith is seen in what I DO and what I DO says I do NOT believe what I said!
Hidden Hypocrisy…
I *have* experienced phase 2 and a bit of 3 before…and yes, I spend *some* time there now, but so often it is still my taste buds that determine what I will eat. How can I dare to speak about not being stuck? How can I encourage others when I am such a hypocrite? :-/
In fact, when it comes to my eating and drinking, I have SHUT off God’s voice of late. After a year and a half of eating “this way,” I know I can have thus and so for breakfast, this and that for lunch, and about this much of this-other-stuff for other eating occasions throughout the day, thank you very much, and still “hover” around the same weight. I have created the “Heidi Diet!” There is NO walking with the Spirit. There is NO praying. There is NO discernment. What there IS is a tuning OUT of God! What is UP with that? :-/ Pride, pride, and more pride.
I confess these things here, now, loudly. Frankly, I don’t want to put this blog entry out there…because with the coming of this realization, an old, but familiar companion has returned as well…shame. I remember well that shame breeds more shameful behavior if left unchecked. Like the blackberry brambles in my backyard, I must wage an all out assault against shame and not allow even a fragment of it to remain.
Knowing that, I reject the old way of secrecy and wallowing in shame. (Proof that God is doing a new thing! Praise YOU LORD!)
I know that shame is evidence of the enemy prowling. Like footprints on a dusty floor…footprints on the unkempt floor of my life, footprints of the enemy who is sneaking around accusing, scheming a way to devour me. I refuse to let him make any mark on my life. That is why this confession is public. I believe that in order to BE RID of this yeast, this old, fermented dough, I must choose to allow the exposing to be public, too, just as all my other claims have been public. I wish FIRST would splash this across their double page insert…:-(
Well…er…maybe not.
God, in his tenderness, chose to expose the truth in my life quietly. He is gentle that way (well, often times). He has, however, called to me to step into the light with it. He covers me — saturates me — with grace. He wraps me in a blanket. He redeems all the years the locusts have eaten. NOTHING is so great, so horrible as to stand between me and the love of God.
In fact, Psalm 3: 3,4 says:
But you are a shield around me, O LORD; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the LORD I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill.
Selah
Yes, Lord. You are my shield. You bestow glory. You do not cast shame on me. You lift my head, instead. I cry to you. I thank you that You answer, Lord. I choose to “*selah,” Lord. Amen.
* Selah means pause, rest, or think about it.
** I want my dear blog reading friends to know that the above has been in process since Saturday. I have placed it here, but even so, it is an “observation.” The “correction” has begun as well. I now have a daily accountability partner. This is vital for me at this time. I celebrate that the Lord continues to do a NEW new thing! 🙂
Some folks think that Thin Within is just about eating whatever you want…cookies, candies, cakes, YUM! And that is that for the rest of my life! If I am hungry, have a chocolate fest! Once I am no longer hungry, I stop eating. YIPPEE!
Right?
Wrong!
Thin Within is about learning to lean on the Lord and obey HIS guidance. We are free from all diet rules and laws! YES! That is a wonderful thing! But I get to obey HIS voice as HE leads me specifically!
This video, though rather silly since two of my horses put in an appearance (uninvited), explains the three phases of Thin Within.
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
– Psalm 42:7
Stormie Omartian’s book, The Prayer That Changes Everything, has ministered to my heart a great deal. I want to share the prayer found on pages 128 and 129 in it’s entirety. It is my prayer that it reaches into the deep places of your heart as it does mine.
O Lord, I worship You and praise You as Immanuel, my God who is with me. I long for more of You. I seek after You and thirst for You like water in a dry land. I want to stand under the gentle waterfall of Your Spirit and feel the soothing mist of Your love showering over me. I want to be immersed in the center of the flow of Your Spirit. I want to be close enough to You to feel Your heartbeat. You are the only answer to the emptiness I feel when I am not with You. The fullness of Your being is what I crave. The intimacy of embrace is what I long for. I know there is nothing or no one in the world that can do for me what You do. I want to feel Your presence in my life in a new and powerful way. You are far and above anything on earth I might long for. You are all I desire.
Just being with You changes everything in me. Longing for you makes me long to be free of anything that would draw my attention away. Lord, I draw close to You this day. Thank You that You promise to draw close to me. With You I am never alone. I love Your holiness, Lord. I love Your beauty. With joy I draw water from the wells of Your salvation (Isaiah 12:3).
Thank You that You have chosen to be with Your people. I am grateful that I don’t have to strive to be with You, I only have to long to be with You. Help me to make You the first place I run to when I have longings in my heart. I don’t want to waste time turning to other things that will never satisfy the need I have for intimacy with You. My soul waits for You, Lord (Psalm 33:20).
I am currently working on Beth Moore’s Stepping Up: A Journey Through the Psalmsof Ascent bible study. This study is already ministering a lot to my heart even though I am only in week two.
I want to share some of what has encouraged me. From the Holman Christian Standard Bible, Psalm 123 reads as follows:
Looking for God’s Favor A song of ascents.
1 I lift my eyes to You,
the One enthroned in heaven.
2 Like a servant’s eyes on His master’s hand,
like a servant girl’s eyes on her mistress’s hand,
so our eyes are on the LORD our God
until He shows us favor.
3 Show us favor, LORD, show us favor,
for we’ve had more than enough contempt.
4 We’ve had more than enough
scorn from the arrogant
[and] contempt from the proud.
This psalm encouraged and challenged me. First, can you relate (as I can) to the statement of the psalmist, “We’ve had more than enough contempt. We’ve had more than enough scorn from the arrogant and contempt from the proud.”
When I was heavy, I felt this all the time. I felt the contempt of men, children, and even women. I was treated differently than I am now. Sure, some might say that it was all in my mind, but whether it was or not, I *felt* it. I felt like I was treated differently because of being overweight — obese.
I will never forget being late for a connecting flight once…it was a small little “puddle jumper” from one airport to another about an hour away. As I climbed aboard (I mean this was a SMALL plane with only two seats on one side and one on the other), I felt the eyes of all looking at me like: “Now the plane will surely list to one side. Put her on the side with only one seat! She will balance out the side with two!” There was one man in particular, whose scrutinizing gaze reduced me to nothing. Why I gave him that power is beyond me. The memory is still with me (obviously).
I have had enough of that sort of contempt.
Even as I was reminded of this, I was encouraged by the words of the psalm. In those moments when I feel like the target of assaults–from the enemy, from strangers, from people I love and know…on what will I choose to focus my attention?What will I invite to fill my vision?
Right now, with all that confronts you, confronts me, with all the demands made of us, to what are we looking? Upon what am I choosing to focus? Is it the trial? Is it the circumstance? Is it the person and the way I feel wounded by them? Or is it how little food I get to eat if I really want to release weight–or keep the weight off? Am I focused on the things that bother me? Do I make provision for my flesh by choosing to fill my gaze with things that will cultivate discontentment and resentment?
This psalm has an answer to a question that I may not even know I am asking.
Who is it that is over all? Who is in charge? Who is truly on the throne? My YHWH, LORD, God Almighty, I AM is in heaven. He is on the throne. As the song goes, He is God alone. In verse one, the psalmist declares “I lift my eyes to YOU…” His gaze had to be lifted from what was facing him, the contempt being shown him, the circumstances that overwhelmed him. But the one choosing to do the lifting, the shifting of the gaze is him. I must choose to do the same.
I have a choice. I can choose to focus on what it is that has my shorts in a bunch, the insults, the contempt, the trial, the person blocking my goal or disappointing me somehow, or I can LIFT my eyes and look to God. As I focus on HIM, all the other things fade in significance. This is a principle that is so true and it has been revolutionary for me personally as I have walked this path. It is very much related to humility and to gratitude. If I insist on being the focus of my life, or if I insist on focusing on all the things I am bothered by in my life, it will change everything how I perceive what comes next, or seems to.
Beth Moore points out in the lesson on this psalm that: WhereI look affects—->
WhatI hear, which affects—->
What I feel, which affects—->
What I expect…
I would add that what I expect then affects what I experience.
No, I don’t believe in the “power of positive thinking,” but I do believe that what I expect affects where I look in the next moment…and paints it accordingly. What I expect affects what I experience, which, unless I stop the cycle, will affect where I look and what I hear…and so on. It is a cycle!
I want to break this cycle. I don’t want to focus on “my problems” and perpetuate a bad attitude which seems to perpetuate trials, which perpetuates my fixating on the trials and on and on. I will break the cycle by choosing to focus on the LORD who is ON THE THRONE. He IS sovereign. He IS good. He IS sufficient. He IS loving. He IS gracious…
When I choose to foster gratitude and praise the Lord, I am doing this. I am breaking the cycle. I am choosing where I look, which affects what I hear, which affects how I feel (WHOO HOO! When I think on, look to and praise the Lord, my feelings change!), which affects what I expect and what I experience! WHOO HOO!
At the Thin Within forums, someone posted that she had a new realization strike her. That she is ignoring God when she overeats. This strikes me as profound, too. I am so glad she had the courage to share!
I could REALLY identify with this.
God often uses my horses to teach me things. Harley is my very sensitive horse. He loves to GO! I try not to do anything with his face or with my legs unless I really MEAN it. Like lightly touching on the reins (he doesn’t even have a bit in his mouth) means something to him. Touching a thigh to one side and lifting the other…it means something.
I noticed last week when i was riding him that he had become “duller” to what I “said” in my cues. This was disappointing to me. I *want* him responsive to me, while dulled to other things to a degree (like a balloon that blows by on the wind).
Sometimes, it is nice to “desensitize” a horse to some things…like tarps, plastic bags and so on. You slowly saturate them with whatever it is (like plastic bags) and give them experiences that are positive with the item that formerly concerned them so that they ultimately aren’t bothered by it any more. They become insensitive to it. Or non-challant.
Some riders do this without realizing it with their cues. I wondered last week when I rode Harley and he was so dull if I had, in effect, taught him to ignore my “voice.”
I don’t want to be that way with the Lord. I never want to become dull to his “cues.” I want “lightness” and “softness” in my responsiveness. My trainer speaks of how when I barely lift the rein, the response of the horse and his *thought* is to be “Yes? What are we going to do?”
Well, I want to be that way with the Lord. If he even HINTS at something that he wants from me, I want to be there with a “Speak, Lord, I am listening.” Or a “Yes? What are we going to do? What do you want of me?”
I love it when God uses my horses to teach me something.
This photo shows a group of us at a horse clinic working with desensitizing a horse that was worried about lots of things. By the time we were done with a long series of steps (gradually desensitizing him) he wasn’t worried about the umbrella, plastic flag or the chair. He no longer heard their “voices.” May we never grow dull to the voice of the Lord.
Mike Cleveland, in Lesson 60 of Setting Captives Free – The Cross: Finding Life in Jesus’ Death says:
Yes, there are “trials of many kinds” that believers face (James 1:2). Yes, there are hardships to be endured as discipline (Hebrews 12:7). Yes, our days are few and full of trouble (Job 14:1). Yes, we have enemies on every side (Judges 8:34). Yet, through it all, we are encouraged to celebrate a feast of deliverance. In the midst of our trials and troubles, we are exhorted to look to the cross and relish the accomplishments of it. While enduring our hardships in this world, we are commanded to celebrate the payment of our debt and the completion of our salvation. While fighting in every battle with the enemy of our souls, we are to rejoice in the defeat of this enemy, which happened at the cross. =======
Amen!
Again, I am reminded that as I choose to do this, it affects my perspective. Having a higher, loftier, praising perspective affects how I see what happens next and how I experience it.
