Today’s podcast episode is part of the 30 Days of Dangerous Hope Campaign. Grab your coffee and listen in as I share a heartfelt message about how Hope Challenges Our Perspectives.

By the time I was 26 years old,  I had consumed 250,00 pills. I had spent 14,235 hours doing breathing treatments. My medical bills added up to $663,000. Most of that was just for daily medications.

These numbers are quite conservative because most CF warriors could double or even quadruple some of those numbers for the same number of years. It would be easy to dwell on the problems, don’t you think? Come on, the medical bills alone would put some of us over the edge! But why do that? It would just be a waste of time and a waste of life really. What good is it going to do me, or anyone else, to spend time as the guest of honor at a pity party?

Hope challenges our perspectives.

In order to see the gift in these obstacles, a new perspective was needed. Just add a few new letters from the alphabet, and obstacles can become opportunities. Opportunities that made my entire situation seem more a blessing than a curse.

Here’s how I choose to look at those facts of my life:

–    250,000 pills = dedication and discipline to stay healthy and maintain life. This allowed me to make other healthy choices such as better nutrition, exercising, and getting enough rest.

–    14,235 hours doing treatments = personal reflection time. I learned how to spend time journaling and praying because I was forced to sit in one place for forty minutes at a time. This was also the beginning of learning to be more patient!

–    $663,000 in medical bills = helping pay someone else’s salary and giving them job security! Hey, maybe there were some kids that were able to eat because of me, right?

The simple decision to shift my perspective opened the door to learn the power of words. Out of the heart the mouth speaks. We find that in the Bible (Luke 6:45) and when you begin to pay attention to your own words and the words of others, it’s not hard to see the truth of that statement. It’s very possible to be a happy person and still speak words of death and focus on the wrong thing. That was me for the majority of my life.

Your words build up or tear down your hope.

Speaking words of life is something that should be taught in schools, churches, businesses…everywhere really. But it’s not. Growing up we often heard, and probably even proclaimed, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.” Big time false! Words do hurt, and we completely miss the importance of our words on a daily basis.

Hearing a doctor tell your parents that your daughter (you) probably won’t live past ten years old hurts. Hearing and reading on the internet that people with the same disease that’s in your body will probably die before they turn thirty hurts. Those words not only hurt, but they set your brain and body up for a constant fight. Your desire to be healthy or have a healthy child always pales in comparison to words that statistics speak, unless you shift your focus.  Without that shift in perspective, a part of your hope dies, whether you realize it or not.

What are you focusing on?

In other words,