People ARE amazing.

People are amazing and I think I've forgotten that lately.  Friday or Saturday (days blur together, don't they), I was out for a run and I was just rather unthankful (about everything) and wanted an antidote besides turning up Spotify louder.  I decided to do what a song (that I hate and am not thankful for) says to do.  "Count your blessings."

So.

I named 100 things aloud I was thankful for as I was jogging along.  One by one things I'd forgotten were amazing popped into my mind.  "Thank you for:"  and 100 things just flowed.  It didn't take me more than four minutes to get through 100.  (CONFESSION: coffee was in the top ten; the man who invented the french press was 89th.)

Over fifty of that list were people or groups of people or attributes of people.  People do amazing things.  I just kept thinking about people I was thankful for...old friends, family, people I don't know too well but admire, people who are dead, the person of Jesus, etc.

As a kid, mom kept around the house the Random House books entitled, "____do amazing things" and they just go through how mammals, reptiles, birds, and fish are incredible.  (CONFESSION: most of what I know about botany and zoology come from those books).

incredible books!  The other ones are entitled, "___do the strangest
things" But let's be honest: people do the strangest things...

The point of these books being that it's what a thing DOES that makes it amazing.  A venus fly trap traps flies.  If it just was, it probably wouldn't be in the book.  People are different though, because they mean the world to us regardless of if they DO a whole lot or not.  A smile from some of the most inept, helpless people means more than how bees build incredible hives or how lions hunt in a pack.  People are intrinsically amazing and valuable.

As I was just thinking about all the special people I've gotten to interact with, it is often not so much what they do, but rather who they are.  Who they are as a person matters so much more to me than their career, or their resume, or how often they decide to remember I exist.  Just because they are makes me appreciate them.

The world likes to tell us that only the athletes that actually make it to the Olympics are amazing, that only the kids who get through college will change things, that only if you have greater talent than the rest of us are you amazing.  That's a lie.  All people ARE JUST AMAZING because of one fact: they are human.

I recently re-read the Creation account from Genesis. I nearly weep every time I read 2:31 because it's the only time in the account God says, "VERY GOOD" and this is only after he made people.

People, you are VERY GOOD, amazing actually, and you are the most beautiful and important thing in this universe.  You are a special creation and intrinsically amazing.  I think we forget this and when we do we become grumps (like I've been).  This weekend, I'm hanging out with high schoolers who want to GET THIS, who want to really grasp how VERY GOOD people are and how to defend this reality.  I'm hoping to train them that even when someone disagrees with you 100% about what a human life is when you say to that person, "I really think that you're beautiful, that you matter.  I am so glad that you were born, that you exist, and that you're alive and here.  I'm so glad I get to meet you.  You're just amazing," it's hard for that person to keep being angry.  They may never agree with you about truth but hopefully you've planted that seed, that significant reality, that pivotal truth that the whole Universe hinges on: Mankind, you are special, you are Very Good.

Gees, it's hard to run every day and keep going but when I stop and yell to myself, "YOU GET TO BE ALIVE!" it's hard to just quit.  It's hard NOT to start running faster, trying harder, pressing on, because it's amazing!

We're amazing!