A Better Place to Park Our Minds

The little girl sat on the front step, tears streaming down her face, and watched her daddy load all his belongings in his truck. His suitcases and boxes didn’t just contain his clothes, ties, old trophies and dusty books; they also had the shattered and broken pieces of a little girl’s heart. She had begged daddy to stay, pleaded with him to love her enough to try to work things out with mommy. But daddy didn’t seem to listen or care as he shoved boxes in place. Her little heart closed up as he climbed into his truck and pulled out of the driveway without a backward glance. Years went by, she got older, and daddy never wrote, called, or came back. She had nothing but negative memories of daddy. In her mind daddy had never loved her at all. Parking her mind only on the negative thoughts left not only sadness in her heart on what she didn’t have with her daddy, it also caused much anger and bitterness. But then one day, God surprised her in an unusual way. Though her daddy never attempted to contact her in any way, a sweet, deeply buried memory of him surfaced and changed her dark perspective. She was traveling along the eastern coastline after a winter snowstorm and happened to notice glorious, gigantic icicles hanging from the rooftops. And just like that, a memory was triggered! Her mind took her back to growing up in Florida, where there was never any snow. She so badly wanted to see snow that she started praying passionately for snow, night after night. One night, the temperatures dropped surprisingly low and the weatherman called for a freeze, which was very rare for that area. Tragically, there was no precipitation in the forecast, making the chance of snow very slight. However, how delighted she was when she awoke the next morning to a most amazing sight! There were icicles everywhere! Bright, glistening, iridescent icicles were all over the trees in her backyard! And theirs was the only house on the block with such a magical winter display, because she was the only girl who’s daddy thought to intentionally put sprinklers out on the one night it froze. What a gift that memory was in helping her see that her daddy did love her, in his own way. While this didn’t solve all the complications of abandonment, it gave her a healthy thought to dwell on where her dad was concerned. It reminded her to “park her mind in a better spot”

“Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”Philippians 4:8 ESV

It’s so easy to park our minds in bad spots. It doesn’t take much effort to dwell on and rehash our past hurts and wish things were different. And we all have the choice to let those past hurts continue to haunt and damage us or to allow forgiveness to pave the way to a better life. As a first step toward healing, let’s ask our Lord to help us stop parking our minds in the negative and steering towards the positive. We can take every negative thought we have to Jesus and let Him correct or redirect it with the truth of His word. We can choose to allow Him to transform our thought patterns.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2 ESV

In Him,

Mandy Miller