The Grass Is Greener.......

Raeleen and I have lived in various different climates and temperatures.
We have experienced everything from -50 degree cold-snaps, extreme blizzards, torrential downpours, inescapable dark cloud cover, humidity that feels like you are constantly living in a steam room, and +40 degree heats with dryness that makes your skin crack and bleed.

From our experience, we have gathered this conclusion- that there are people that love the climate that they live in and people that hate the climate that they live in.
We lived in Vancouver Canada where it rains and rains for a good portion of the year, and we knew people that loved the rain and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. They would prefer the constant rain to constant sunshine because the sun is too hot and bright.
We also knew people that hated the rain and darkness, and found it depressing. You would hear them talk about how they wished that they lived in southern California where it was always sunny and warm.

We lived in southern California as well, where it was clear skies, hot and sunny all year round.
Interestingly enough we encountered people who loved every minute of the sun, warmth and clear skies, but also knew people who couldn't stand all that sun, heat and clear skies.
To the latter, the sun was too hot, too bright and relentless. They wished that they lived in Seattle where they could escape all of it altogether.
Then there are the people that can't stand rain or excessive sun and love living in colder climates with lots of snow.

Having lived in all of those climates and varying types of weather, Raeleen and I have realized something:
We enjoyed living in all of those areas. We've heard people ask us time and again why we would want to live in a certain area, since the weather there would be "X".

I'll use Vancouver as an example. It rains a lot, but it never bothered us because we were doing what we loved to do. When we moved from Vancouver I found that I had this hatred for the weather there, and thought to myself that I would never want to live in that climate again. It was dark, gloomy and depressing.
But finally I realized that the weather wasn't what made me depressed. In fact I didn't even think twice about it while I was doing something that I really enjoyed doing. I realized that I subconsciously started blaming Vancouver's weather for my frustration and gloominess, when looking back I realize that I only started to feel those things when I found myself in a job that was horrible on every level and extremely stressful.
Once my stress levels started to rise and I found it difficult to wake up in the morning to face a new day of that job, I started shoving every part of my experience in Vancouver into that negativity box.
As I've mentioned before, at this point Raeleen and I thought that we were living the right life, but it wasn't working, so everything ended up being seen through negativity glasses.

So here is something to consider, and this is directed solely at Christians:
When a fellow Christian comes up to you and tells you that he/she feels that God wants them to go to "X" place, why is it that one of the first things that comes up is the weather?
"Oh, that place rains constantly. It's dark and depressing, good luck with that", or "it's always cold there, snows all the time....but you'll be doing God's will, so great".

I think that the reason that one person can love a certain climate equally as much as another person hates it really comes down to perspective and attitude.

Interestingly enough, every person that I've ever encountered that loved living where they lived had a good attitude, and enjoyed doing what they were doing. They never complained about the weather, because they were thriving and loving life. They were following God's will for their lives, and the joy that they had saturated every part of their existence.

Do you remember Carlo? He was our contact, and the one that helped us get situated in Edinburgh.
He has lived in Edinburgh his entire life and absolutely loves it! He's traveled all over the place and can't think of a better place to live then right here.
It's interesting to note that he is one of those exact people that is living God's will for his life and thriving as a result. His love for life and the things that he is doing for God is pouring into every other aspect of his life.
We've had some people here ask us why in the world that we would move to Edinburgh, cause it always rains. Apparently out of all of the reasons that someone could choose to move to a certain location, the weather trumps them all.
Yet you will never hear Carlo complain about the weather here, because he's enjoying every other aspect of life too much to care.

Like I said before, we have lived, and enjoyed living in many different areas with different climates.
When we were living at those locations and things were going great we couldn't care less about the weather. It was only when we were confused, frustrated with life and stressed out that the weather ended up being brought into the equation of happiness.

We believe that when God wants us to move somewhere, He will give us joy in the thing that He has called us to do. He will also give us the grace to be able to overlook, and/or enjoy any climate that we may end up in.

It's not the weather that is the problem- It's our perspective.