The World Is Crazy. But Here in the Real World...
We all know how crazy the world is.
No need to recap or highlight the craziness throughout the world in the past year.
Unfortunately, the world seems to be moving towards more craziness.
If we look at our TV screens, our computer screens, or our phone screens, we see craziness amplified.
But what happens when we turn off our screens and open our eyes?
You know what’s going on out there in the world,
But let me tell you what’s going on in OUR world.
I’m sure many people envy farm life and the isolation that comes with it. While it’s certainly nice to be removed from society at times, we are not as removed from society as some may think.
We don’t just spend all our time secluded on the farm producing food, we spend a lot of time putting it into the hands of the people who are going to eat it.
Not only do the people in our area get to know where their food comes from, we get to know the people it’s going to.
In the past couple years, we have personally handed meat to hundreds of families in our region and have had the blessing of getting to know them in the process.
Here’s what we’ve learned about the people in our world:
They are people like us.
They are people different from us.
People with views similar to us.
People with views different from us.
People who believe what we believe.
People who don’t.
People with problems.
People with different problems.
People doing the best they can.
People waking up and going to work.
People focusing on things they can control.
People who are passionate.
People who care.
A country founded on the idea of freedom will only be successful if the people care.
We are encouraged by the people in our world that care.
I’m a passionate person.
There are some hills I’m willing to die on.
While I’m open to hearing opposing perspectives,
I won’t compromise my values for other peoples’ approval.
That being said, I can still respect someone else passionately standing on a different hill.
We have family members we disagree with, but at the end of the day, we’re still family and can still act like a family.
We have neighbors with different signs in their yard, but at the end of the day, we’re still neighbors and can treat each other like neighbors.
We have friends with a very different perspective on life, but at the end of the day we’re still friends.
Amy and I are not only raising a family together, we’re farming and running our business together.
We do everything together.
We both want what’s best.
We often disagree about what that looks like.
I can be overly optimistic.
I tend to see the upside potential without properly accessing the downside.
I wouldn’t call Amy a pessimist.
But she is more cautious than I am.
For good reason.
I have a lot of good intentions that are still bad ideas.
Not every door leads to a better place.
She’s better at acknowledging the risks and seeing the potential harm that could come with it.
But too much caution can lead to a life of standing still.
We see things differently.
Our differences help each other.
I need her caution, and she needs my optimism.
When God made the world, he filled it with a variety of different living things.
Even more so, He gave uniqueness and variety even within each species.
No two oak trees are the same.
No two hummingbirds birds are the same.
No two human beings are the same.
Every living thing in this world is a unique original.
By design.
God designed the world and filled it with different living things to reveal and demonstrate love.
A love that brings the world together.
The world is trying to amplify our differences to pull us apart.
To create division.
There are plenty of things to be divided over.
Identifying differences is easy.
The world is crazy.
The world has problems.
But here in the real world…
Love is still alive.
Our world is crazy…
But there’s still more love than there is crazy.
(For the record, there’s a lot of crazy in our world).
Our world is filled with problems.
But there’s more love than there are problems.
(For the record, there are a lot of problems in our world.)
Our world is filled with different people.
But the love that keeps us together is stronger than whatever is trying to pull us apart.
Thank you for being a part of our crazy little world.
And for putting up with our part of the crazy.
A crazy world needs a crazy love.