Candid Conversations: Dealing with Unpleasant Situations | Joyce Meyer

How do you react when life throws you a curve ball? It all comes down to attitude. Watch as Ginger and Joyce discuss some of the lessons learned when Joyce experienced a life-altering situation, on this episode of Candid Conversations with Joyce Meyer.

Joyce Meyer, one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers and New York Times best-selling author, shares encouragement and advice to help us enjoy our daily lives.

With a heart to share Christ and love people, Joyce’s messages help people in all walks of life to grow in their faith, learn to study the Bible, find healing from the wounds of life, get answers to life’s questions and encounter the love of God in a powerful way.

Joyce, you just had an experience where you were not able to do everything that you wanted to do.
How about anything?
Fair enough to say. And we do have times like that in life that we we’re just whether it’s physically or for other reasons, not able to do what we really wanna do, what we’re used to doing.
Mhmm. Um, you know, it may be because of age or an injury or just a situation or circumstance.
So, we’re just gonna have a really good talk on how do you deal with that?
Because it it’s not easy when the world seems to be going on and you’re kind of stopped for a little bit.
Well, you know Ginger, everything really boils down to attitude.
It’s like, you can take an attitude.
This is gonna drive me crazy, or you can say Yeah. I’m gonna take this 1 day at a time.
And just in case there’s people watching that don’t know what my situation was, just real quick.
I had a minor back surgery on April 24th.
It’s supposed to be a 2 week recovery.
Got a blood clot at the surgery site. Got in all kinds of pain.
Had to go back in the next day and have a second surgery that did some damage to some of the nerves in my right leg.
So I was 2 weeks in my rehab hospital, getting some strength back in my right leg.
When I went home, of course, it still wasn’t totally strong.
But but it was getting a little bit better each day.
However, in the process of that, I fell and broke my left leg Mhmm. By the ankle.
Yeah.
And so I really couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t walk on either leg.
And so I couldn’t, uh, I had to wear 1 of these big boots that come up to your knee.
And they told me, they said, We have 3 colors, gray, gray, and gray.
So I said, Well, I guess I’ll take the gray. And, uh, so I really couldn’t.
I was having a hard time wearing my regular clothes.
And I And it it was just
But you had a long time that you couldn’t
It was nice. Put any
weight on it. You couldn’t do it. Yeah. I couldn’t do it. A long
time. Yeah. I was in a wheelchair for quite a while, and then Of course, I know there are people who are in wheelchairs all the time.
Mhmm. And so, I’m not saying that for pity’s sake.
I’m just saying that it really put a halt on my life. Yeah.
And it lasted, I’d say a total of I mean, I’m good now.
Still got a little pain in my foot, little weakness in my leg, but not much.
So I’m getting back to normal. I’m now obviously out doing things.
But, uh, uh, for almost 3 months, I said I went to 3 places.
The chair, the recliner, the toilet, and the bed. And that literally
Yeah.
Was it.
And that’s hard.
I did take advantage of the time, and I wrote a good book called Don’t Overthink It, which is not available yet, so don’t call us an ass fart.
It won’t be out for a couple years. But I couple of things.
1, I really from the beginning told the Lord, I I want to do what I teach other people to do.
In situations Mhmm. Like this.
It was very important to me that I behave the way that I would tell somebody else to behave in that situation.
So, right from the very beginning, I set myself to believe that all things work together for good, to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
And, I mean, I I didn’t get into the why.
I think people not that you can’t ask God why. He doesn’t get mad if you ask him why.
But usually, all you do is confuse yourself because you don’t you don’t always get answers, or sometimes you think you got an answer, and then it turns out not to be the answer.
There are times when God will tell you why, but I didn’t get into thinking, you know, did I do something wrong?
It caused this. Did I open a door for the devil?
Now, I did ask God if I did something, that opened the door, please show me.
But I don’t believe in going on digging expeditions, because you just get yourself in trouble doing that.
And I just decided I had to take it 1 day at a time.
And not, you know, when you let your mind start going to, oh, man, 12 weeks.
I mean, they told me I’d have to wear this boot 12 weeks.
I mean, I counted up how many days that was. It was like, Oh, my gosh.
That’s almost a 100 days. What am I gonna do?
And of course, we had to cancel some conferences, which I hate disappointing people.
And I hate not being able to do what Couldn’t do
what you wanted to do, and felt called to do.
Yeah. What said to do. And, uh, uh, it it was just it was a challenging situation.
But I was so blessed. My family pitched in and helped.
I mean, I really, for quite a while, couldn’t be by myself at all.
I had to have somebody with me 247 because I I had to have help going to the bathroom and all kinds of stuff.
And so my family, I have 4 grown children, and, uh, uh, daughter in laws, and my husband.
And they they actually took shifts, 4 hour shifts. And somebody stayed with me all the time.
Well, 1 of my daughters stayed with me all the time at night.
And then, she didn’t stay during the day. And we had a lot of laughs.
I mean, I watched a lot of good movies. I read books.
I I refused to get into feeling sorry for myself. Mhmm.
It’s just all those things are so tempting, but they don’t do any good at all.
And I know there are people watching today that have much worse situations than what I’m talking about.
But attitude attitude attitude attitude. It really makes all the difference in the world.
So, when when you really had that realization, I am not going to be able to do these things that I normally do, that I feel like God wanted me to do.
How did you begin to process that in a different way?
Because it it is, it’s a big change for anyone to go through that where from 1 day to the next Well, it’s all things are different now.
It’s all it’s all in your thinking. Your thinking is what develops your attitude.
And you know, I always say that when something changes, if you don’t like the change, the first thing you need to do is change your mind about the change.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
In other words, let’s just say that we make a decision here at work.
And, uh, not everybody likes it. Well, it’s gonna happen anyway.
And so they might as well change their mind about the change we’re making Mhmm.
And then it can be pleasant for them.
Right.
But anything, you know, something changes on your job, whatever.
They move you to another office you don’t wanna be in
or Sure.
You know, there’s there’s all kinds of things that happen in our lives that we don’t like. Yeah. Yeah.
But there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s something that’s out of your control.
Well, I couldn’t unbreak my leg.
And I couldn’t undo the, you know, the damage that had been done to my leg.
I had to give it time to heal and Yeah. Do the therapy, and do the exercises.
And, you know, that’s not always fun because doesn’t feel good.
It hurt.
And you know, a lot of people, they said it’s amazing how many people won’t do their exercises, and they just never really get over Mhmm.
The damage that was done to themselves.
And so I encourage anybody watching, if you’ve had some kind of damage or an injury and they’re telling you to do physical therapy, you need to do it.
And it may not be easy, but it’s easier than staying in that same situation your whole Yeah. Life.
And so, really, the the whole thing, no matter how you go about it, is it’s in your thinking Yeah.
And it’s in your attitude. And you know, I had a couple days where I started to feel kind of like, and then but I would just say, Nope.
I’m not going there. Yeah. I’m not doing it.
I’ve lived my life like that in the past, and it doesn’t help.
It doesn’t make the time go by faster.
Yeah.
And people don’t wanna hear it, you know? Yeah.
They really Well It’s not that people don’t have the empathy for you, but they nobody wants to hear somebody complain all the time and grumble all the time.
We all have to course correct. Yeah.
He it was interesting because, um, you had shared some of the story and, um, then a couple days after called me and said, right after I said what a great attitude I had, I started having, you know, the glimpses of not such a good attitude.
And but you it made me feel better about life in
general. But
you you had to see it and and course correct. Make a decision. What am I gonna do differently?
Well, the devil loves it. The devil loves it when you give a testimony about a victory Yeah.
To try to take it away from you. Yes.
And the very next day, I had 2 different attacks on my mind of starting to feel sorry for myself.
And I had to say out loud, no. I am not gonna go there.
Yeah. So how do we help someone in in our life?
Someone who’s a friend, someone in the family, in our church who is now at a point where they’re perhaps isolated, can’t do what they used to do.
Um, how can we be an encouragement? What what things are important?
Well, like I said, my family helping me.
I think when when you know somebody who can’t do things for themselves, get practical.
Put a little bit of action to your empathy.
You know, the bible says that Jesus was moved with compassion. And so people that are like that He’s
really good. He didn’t stand Yeah. Still with it. Yeah.
He you real compassion. Yeah. You know, it’s 1 thing to just feel a little sorry for somebody.
But when you have real compassion on somebody, you’re gonna help them. Yeah.
And so, ask them what you can do for them. Is there something I can do for you?
You know, if they’re if they can’t go out, I mean, I have people cooking for me.
I got lots of flowers. I got lots of people praying for me. Pray for people.
Let people know I’m praying for you.
I had somebody text me just this morning and said, I’m still praying for you every day.
How are things going? Well
Yeah.
I believe that it wasn’t just my decision to have a good attitude.
I think that people praying for me was what gave me the strength to have that good attitude.
We we don’t do anything apart from God. Apart from me, you can do nothing.
And so, it yes, there is a decision involved.
But you can’t do it just on decision, you have to pray that God will help you, and you need to give him the credit.
Mhmm. And give him the glory.
And I know that I couldn’t have done that without God, because I’m a very active person.
I don’t like to be not be able to do what I wanna do.
And I had all kinds, all kinds of people telling me what to do. Yeah. Don’t do this.
Don’t do that. Be careful. Don’t do this. Don’t do that.
And I’m like, you know, how many doctors am I gonna have? And they weren’t all real doctors.
So, you know, it’s doctor Dave, and you know.
And, you know, it Ginger, there’s no point in fighting something that you can’t do anything about.
Yeah. Yeah. Because for some people what we’re talking about will be a permanent change.
Right.
Something that is has shifted in their life, in their health.
And, um, there’s an adjustment to be made because it it’s not going to be the way that it was before.
So so often, we frustrate ourselves trying to get rid of something that only God can do anything about.
Or trying to get something we don’t have, that only God can give us.
And so we really need to learn, like Paul said, I’ve learned how to be content, Whether I’m abased or abounding, whether I like my circumstances or I don’t.
I’ve learned to be content. And I think he learned it, probably, by doing it the wrong way.
And seeing how miserable it made him, and then realizing that he could still have joy in every situation.
But he had to have the right attitude in order to be able to do that.
Yeah. Any final encouragement for someone who might be having a hard time with that right now?
Well, trust God that you’re gonna get better and better every day.
And I don’t think anybody has to just say, well, you know, this is my lot in life, and I’m never gonna get any better.
You you can always believe that you can get better because God is a miracle working God.
And ask God what you can do to be a blessing to other people while you’re in that situation.
Just remember, 1 day at a time, don’t take it all in big, you know, chunks.
Just look at it 1 day at a time, and God gives us our daily bread.
Give us this day our daily bread, doesn’t just mean what we’re gonna eat.
He’s talking about what we need for every day.
Yeah. Sometimes getting better means seeing the goodness of God Right. Where you are.
Yeah. Amen.
Thank you very much.
You’re welcome.