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Perspective: How viewing things from another angle can be the difference between life and death

My husband and I took an hour drive to one of his friend’s houses for dinner a few weeks ago. Rather than taking the highway like we normally would, we took some back country roads for a change of scenery.

There is something about long stretches of road surrounded by vast plots of farm land and trees that brings me peace. Maybe it is because 80% of my home state, Indiana, is full of farms. šŸ™‚

That afternoon, it was on the side of one such road I noticed 5 black metal crosses with white paper stuck to the back. My heart sank as they came into view. Everyone knows that crosses on the side of the road signify an accident ending in death. “How tragic. It must have been an entire family,” I whispered as we approached them.

As our car sped past them, I turned around to see what type of memorial items were left or written on the other side. In that instant, my perspective totally changed. Viewing them from the other side I could see they weren’t crosses for an accident, but signs advertising a new housing development. The cross in the back was simply structural support for the sign.

In a matter of 30 seconds, I experienced extreme sadness and then uplifting joy. Nothing had changed about the signs. It was all about the perspective from which I viewed them. The side I chose to view was the difference between new life (for the families that would one day own the new homes) and death (of the “dead family”).

Have you ever viewed a situation from a new perspective and come away with a totally different opinion/outlook?

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