Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The Good and the Beautiful

Sometimes, when life gets crazy or redundant or just too much, I have to remind myself that I get to shift my perspective.

Even when circumstances can't be changed, how we look at them can be. Always.

Because I think we humans tend to look at life as black or white. Good or bad. Beautiful or ugly.

We all love to share the beautiful parts. We all love celebrating with each other and announcing our good news from the rooftops, but it's harder to look at the hard things, the seemingly ugly things, and shout those to everyone around us.

It's harder because we feel like we're burdening people with our burdens. We feel like our problems are probably small next to theirs, and it's not fun to look at the ugly things, and it's not easy to ask for prayer because we feel self-centered and selfish over the bad and the ugly.

I was online with some friends the other night when someone asked for prayer requests and within moments they were flooding in. Everyone felt safe with each other in that community, and I realized how blessed I was when everyone stated their needs without hesitation. And I wondered why we don't do that more often.

Why we don't just say what we need.

Because when we do, our burden is lightened. Our perspective can change. We know we're not going through this life alone.

Life is meant to be shared. The good, the bad and the ugly... which I think is really just the good and the beautiful to Him, you know. Things are hard for us, bad for us, ugly to us, but to Him it’s all just the pattern of life that brings us closer to Him. And there is beauty in that.

The good, the bad and the ugly... God can see ahead to the beauty that comes from the ugly. He's knows the beauty in the ugly pain that we can’t yet see. Our perspective shifts when we trust that He will bring beauty from our pain. That He will carry us as we carry our burdens.

And we can be Christ to each other as we help each other carry those burdens.

So I want to offer that to you today. A place where you can say what you need from us and we can pray for each other. Write your request in the comment, and pray for the person who commented before you.

Let's take the perspective of the good and the beautiful today in everything that's in front of us, let's make it beautiful by sharing it together.

How can we pray for you?

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