Where Is Your Focus?

Where Is Your Focus?

I have this picture hanging on the wall in my home, and I absolutely love it.

There’s darkness all through it.

But that’s not where my eyes go.

My eyes go to the light.

And maybe that’s why I love it so much.

Because somewhere along the way, I’ve learned that life is a lot like this picture.

There are so many things in this life I haven’t gotten to choose.

I didn’t choose every storm I’ve walked through.
I didn’t choose every heartbreak, disappointment, loss, or hard season.

But I still get to choose where I place my focus.

I choose what I think on.

I choose what I speak.

I choose whether I camp out in my pain and allow what happened to me to become my identity, or acknowledge the pain and keep moving through it.

I choose whether I hold onto resentment and anger or do the hard work of forgiveness.

I choose whether I spend my days consumed by everything that’s wrong or intentionally notice what is still beautiful.

I choose gratitude.

I choose to count my blessings.

I choose to speak life.

I choose to remember how faithful God has been.

And I’ve learned those choices matter.

A lot.

Because I’ve walked through enough storms to know what happens when all I can see is the storm.

I start drowning.

It makes me think of Peter.

He was literally walking on water toward Jesus. But when his attention shifted to the wind around him, fear took over and he began to sink.

And goodness, have I lived that.

Fear and worry have been a very real part of my story.

I know what it’s like to let my mind run through every possible thing that could go wrong. To worry about things that haven’t even happened. To feel that sense of foreboding that tells me something bad must be coming.

I know what it’s like to live ten steps ahead of the moment I’m actually standing in, trying desperately to figure out how everything is going to work out.

But here’s what I’ve learned:

I have a choice there, too.

I can keep feeding the fear.

I can keep rehearsing the worst-case scenarios.

I can keep trying to solve tomorrow from where I’m standing today.

Or…

I can choose to trust God.

Not because I suddenly know how everything is going to work out.

Sometimes I don’t have a clue.

I choose to trust Him without knowing.

I choose to walk by faith when I cannot see what’s ahead.

That doesn’t mean fear never shows up. It does.

It doesn’t mean I never worry or have moments when my mind starts running ahead of me. I do.

But when all I’m looking at is what’s going wrong, when I’m rehearsing everything I’m afraid might happen, when I’m speaking more about the storm than I am about the faithfulness of God…

I can feel myself sinking.

And that’s when I have a choice.

I can keep my eyes on the storm, or I can turn my focus back to God.

The storm may not change at all.

But I do.

My focus changes.
My heart posture changes.
Fear begins to loosen its grip.

And somehow, in the middle of the very same storm, I can find peace again.

I’ve experienced it.

I’ve been in circumstances where nothing around me made sense, yet something within me remained anchored.

I’ve experienced peace that truly does surpass understanding.

I’ve felt held.

I’ve felt guided.

I’ve walked through things I once thought would take me out and wondered,

How am I doing this?

And yes, sometimes it feels supernatural.

Sometimes it feels a whole lot like walking on water.

But I’ve learned that peace doesn’t always arrive because the storm stopped.

Sometimes it comes because I chose where to put my eyes in the middle of it.

Maybe that’s part of what it means to stay anchored in God.

Not that the storms stop coming.

Not that we never hurt, grieve, get angry, become afraid, or have moments when we sink.

But we keep choosing where we return.

And maybe that’s why this picture hanging on my wall speaks to me so deeply.

The darkness is still there.

But so is the light.

And I get to choose where I place my eyes.

I’ve been learning to walk this out since I hit rock bottom in 2002.

The fear. The wrestling. The surrender. Learning to trust God when I couldn’t see what was ahead. Learning to listen for that still small voice and finding my way back when fear pulled my attention somewhere else.

So much of that journey is woven throughout my books, Living Still and Still Living Still.

I’m still learning.

I’m still choosing.

And I imagine I always will be.

So I’ll leave you with the same questions I’m asking myself and all my coaching clients:

Where is your focus?

What are you thinking on?

What are you speaking?

Because you may not get to choose everything that happens around you…

but you do get to choose what you anchor yourself to in the middle of it.

And that choice can make all the difference.

If you’re in a season where you know you need help shifting your focus—if fear has gotten loud, the storm is all you can see, or you simply need to be reminded that there is another way to walk through it—my books, Living Still and Still Living Still, share the story of how I’ve learned to do exactly that.

Not perfectly.

But faithfully.

One choice, one surrender, one return at a time.

You can find both books here. 

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Part of the Breadcrumbs collection by Abby Lewis—true stories that gently invite us into a different way to live.