Paradigm Shift

I am one of nine children. I have two older brothers and six younger siblings what that means is that I had a lot of practice in sharing. We were all born within ten years and like all children we wanted attention. My Grandmother worked at making us feel special.  She had one 8X10 picture frame on her bureau and she would rotate our pictures in that frame.

The year I turned eleven I spent the Winter with my Grandmother. It was a little bit like Heaven getting to be the only child in her house. I had shared her with my sibling all my life but that year my cousins were coming from Brazil. Sharing my Grandmother with my siblings was one thing sharing her with a whole other family was a lot harder.

Grandmother had never gotten to meet those grandchildren and as the time got closer she became more and more excited. It was all she could think about ,it was all she could talk about, it was the only thing she could focus on. I became very jealous.

I began to pray and ask Jesus to help me with my jealousy. The way He answered my pray not only had a powerful impact on my childhood it affected my whole life as well. While struggling with my jealousy I felt miserable and tormented. After I prayed I realized I had a choice to love or hate. I asked Jesus to help me love.

My prayer was that I would see my cousins with my Grandmother's eyes. I wanted them to be as special to me as they were to her. When God answered this prayer He gave me a wonderful gift. First, He showed me that He really did answer prayer that He could change my heart. Then He allowed me to have a wonderful relationship with my cousins.

I looked up a definition of Paradigm Shift and it said,"a change from one way of thinking to another. It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphism. It just does not happen but rather is driven by agents of change." This seemed to be similar to what I had experienced through prayer.

I don't get to see them very often but I treasure them very much. This was the first Paradigm Shift of many I have experienced through prayer.