Speaking through a face mask and pointing to diagrams of my baby’s head, a wonderful midwife looked at me and said: “Your baby was suspected back-to-back from an early stage of labour.”

She went on to explain that, when a baby is back-to-back in labour, there is a 90% chance that baby will spin round and get their little bodies in the correct birthing place and position. During my first labour, my daughter was in the birthing position, with her head tucked in, but she never spun round to the right birthing place… For me, some form of intervention – forceps or caesarean – was inevitable.

Listening to this information, I felt as though this midwife had turned a bright lightbulb on, in a very dark room.

She had no idea how much time I had gone over and over the details of my daughter’s birth.

No idea how much shame I had experienced, lies in my head telling me that I hadn’t done the right thing. That I should have avoided induction or intervention, had more faith, listened to other’s opinions…

She had no idea how much guilt I had experienced. Guilt because I believed that I had done the wrong thing in God’s eyes, or the wrong thing by my daughter. Guilt because I felt like other people saw me as a failure.

But, here are the big things I have learnt this week:

• Sometimes, you and I need to be like that midwife and switch on a bright light for another person, in the midst of their darkness.
• Sometimes, you and I need to accept that our own perspectives might be flawed. We might not be seeing things as they are – maybe we are seeing things as dictated to us by the voices of shame and guilt.

I had another experience this week, in which I felt like I had failed. (O.K, another 20 experiences… but let’s just focus on 1 at a time…)

In this particular experience I was wondering what God thought about me buying an expensive item. I was also wondering what my husband thought about me buying this same item. I was panicking that both God and my husband both thought that this item was too expensive, but, equally, I knew that I would really benefit from getting the item that day.

I put it in the basket… at the checkout my heart was racing. My mind was telling me that the bill would be too big. I doubted that God was in this one, He probably wouldn’t cover the cost. Anxiety and stress were raging… I had time pressures because my family were waiting for me in the car outside…

Would you laugh if I told you that expensive item was £9?

Would you laugh if I told you it was a bottle of anti-reflux medicine, because I have pregnancy heartburn and I can’t bear to wait for a couple of weeks to order one at my next midwife appointment?

Your laugh tells me that sometimes, we benefit from perspective.

• Always, we benefit from God’s perspective.

You see, when I think back on this past week, it’s been full of anxious, shame-ridden, guilty moments, similar to my expensive heartburn relief story.

Anxiety because my toddler had a pram lunch of raspberries, flapjack and breadsticks twice this week… what will people think?!

Shame because I cooked a toad-in-the-hole tea which, once cooked, tasted like scrambled egg instead of Yorkshire Pudding (what did I do wrong!?) I accidentally served this wonderful meal to three of my friends… as a treat!

Guilt because my house is a classroom and I have spent so much time trying to tidy it up – time in which I wonder, should I have just let it be and spent time with my daughter, instead?

But, let me tell you what I think God’s perspective is in all of these situations…

LOVE.

Here is what I suspect is true:

I am busy making up stories in the darkness of my mind, negative stories about how God and others are disappointed with me.

While I am busy spinning stories of anxiety, shame and guilt… God is reaching out to me in love.

Sounds wishy washy but here is what the bible says:

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?(As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8: 35 – 39, NLT.

When I was experiencing a 36-hour labour that contained tears, pain and unanswered prayers – He looked at me with love in His eyes. He didn’t condemn me for making “wrong” or “right” decisions. He wasn’t laughing at me saying “if you had more faith, this wouldn’t be happening.” God’s eyes were full of love for me, in my weakness.

When I was experiencing panic, whilst shopping for heartburn-relief medicine, God wasn’t angry at me. He wasn’t condemning me, as I worried about money and battled with negative thoughts. Again, He loved me, throughout that entire experience.

Through the pram lunches, during the fallout after my scrambled-egg disaster dinner, even when I am cleaning for the 100^th time in one week, He doesn’t stop loving me. Absolutely nothing can separate me from His loving gaze.

With love in His eyes, He sees me. And that is the perspective that I need to remember.

His loving perspective is the only one I need to focus on.

At the end of his famous letter, addressed to the church in Ephesus, Apostle Paul writes:

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3: 16 – 19, NIV. My emphasis.

We need to help each other remember that God’s perspective is love. We need to help each other grasp how great God’s love is, towards each one of us.

When you battle with stress and explode in tears, when you let people down and over-perform… God sees it all and He loves you throughout. There isn’t a day that goes by that He doesn’t absolutely adore you. His heaven-spun creation. His delight, His baby girl.

Don’t let this message pass you by… think on these three questions:

• Are there any moments in which your perspective may have been a little flawed, lately?
• How does it make you feel to think that God’s loving eyes have gazed upon you, in all your messy and wild circumstances, this past week?
• How can you bring God’s loving perspective to a friend, a colleague or a stranger in the week ahead?

Praying for people to switch on lights, so that you can grasp more of God’s amazing love.