Tag Archives: John Eldridge

Finding goodness – Sharing goodness

 

 

We are made for goodness just as we are made to breathe. – John Eldridge

 

The Cedar Rapids Gazette ran a recent article encouraging local folk to share what makes them proud of their city.

My sister shared wrote what happened on Valentine’s Day when our mother had car trouble on First Avenue in Cedar Rapids:
“Within minutes, not one, but two, kind citizens pulled over to help her, moved her car safely out of traffic, and stayed there with her until I could get to mom,” Elizabeth wrote. “They were such a comfort to her rattled nerves. This is a big SMALL town where strangers reach out to help, even during their busy morning commute. And even though it made them late to work. “I’ll take Cedar Rapids any day over a big city,” she wrote.

When we traveled to Bolivia, South America for a month, we lived in the mountain valley town of Cochabamba. With a metropolitan population of 1 million people, it was much noisier than our small town of 15,000. But we both were impressed that it was like coming home for the first time. I thought it funny when people at the local church referred to their sprawling metropolis as a small town. But when we both became so sick someone we hardly knew brought us homemade chicken soup. And when we moved on to Santa Cruz de la Sierra (2-3 million) for additional recuperation, a person we had met just once, also brought us homemade chicken soup and helped us get to an English-speaking doctor.

If you experience such compassion, you will not likely forget it. And if your heart is open, hopefully it encourages you to share that same goodness with others. Goodness is all around us. We only have to stop complaining to see it, exercise our grateful heart to grow, and share that same goodness with others.

There’s nothing quite like celebrating goodness. Let’s reach beyond ‘random’ acts of kindness. Let your actions be purposeful and deliberate. Let your compassion help someone up when they fall, forgive a mistake, and bring a light of truth and encouragement to a dark world.

In good times and tough ones, go light our world with goodness.
May it be said of you…”surely goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life.” Psalm 23:6