I live in a good world

Friday, April 03, 2009

You won't find me saying that very often.
More often than not you'll find me groaning at the decay of this wicked world and craning my neck to try and get a glimpse of heaven somewhere, anywhere. That's why I love getting a Starbucks gift card so much. There's a tiny bit of heaven in that cup of cinnamon dolce and somedays I need that for sure!

But today, on a sunny friday, as I'm strolling lazily around the blogosphere and seeing what my facebook friends are up to, I'm thinking I live in a good world. Chrissi had a link called Gifted for Leadership. I followed it and found a community of women in ministry doing their best to encourage and support one another in what I know to be a very misunderstood and maligned sphere of life...women in Christian leadership...that is. I don't think there are any other "leaders" in this 'ol world who take as many unfair, below-the-belt hits as women in Christian leadership do, and it was nice to see a place where they're building each other up, helping each other out. Really nice.

Then I strolled over to my new favorite blog by one of my favorite authors. Donald Miller. I think he's so funny and he has given me some much needed encouragement lately to keep believing that I can write something worthy along with some really cool practical tips. Todays post asks what we think of his new book cover. It's orange Donald, duh! What do you think I think? (I'm still in my orange phase :-) ) The subtitle of the book is "What I learned while editing my own life", and for some reason that made me smile. I bet you really would learn a lot if you were to take an editor's pen to your own life story. I think I might try that. I've got like 32 journals I could edit. Wow! what a thought.

There are just some good people out there, you know? People who are just really trying their best to be beautiful and Godly, and I'm thankful for them. I remember Kevin talked one Sunday...or maybe it was Rick (hmmm...sorry guys) about how Christ's followers really are lighting and preserving this world in ways that really couldn't be perceived unless we had a way to compare our world with us and without us all at once. There are pockets of Christian character in most every workplace, even some of the darker ones, and the world as a whole is better for the general influence of the collected whole of the Body of Christ. I don't think we think of it in that big picture way very often.

So I'm thinking about that today. I'm thankful for my family...the ones I don't know, like those women who are encouraging each other; and the ones who don't know me, like Donald. As well as the ones I do know, who wrote nice things about me on my Facebook status today. I live in a good, good world...even if it is decaying.