The Ministry of Validation

I stood by the counter watching my pizza roll out of the commercial oven. A restaurant employee took it from the oven, cut it, and had it in its box all in three seconds flat.  I was impressed.  When she handed my pizza to me, I said, "Wow.  This isn't your first day doing this, is it?"

She leaned forward confidentially and said, "I started yesterday."

We both laughed, knowing that wasn't true, but I said, "In that case, you're a genius."

We were laughing as I walked out.

On the way home, I started thinking about my brief exchange with the Pizza Genius.  Even though much of it had been in jest, I knew I had stumbled upon something I should have been consciously engaging in for years: validating people.

This old world could use it.  Its people are so full of sorrow and pain that world news can be overwhelming, not to mention personal pain that never reaches the headlines. Being so entrenched in it, negativity leaks out all over until you hear hurtful things spoken friend to friend in the name of a jest.

But I have a positive God Who feeds me with positive things.  He tells me I am an heir of His.  He tells me I am accepted.  That I have worth and value.  He tells me he is preparing a place for me so I can live with him someday.

Being fed with that kind of positivity, I want to become one of those who continually pays it forward. I want to join the ranks of people who pass along words of happiness to perfect strangers, leaving them with a sense of cheer and warmth.

I'm encouraged by people who have done that to me.  Or by people like my brother-in-law who works as an intensive care nurse and says his goal is to leave each room he works in with a little taste of heaven.  I find those kind of people inspiring.

So, join me.  Let's bask in the joy of being one of God's children, then step out, confident in Whose child we are, and pay it forward.

The world needs it.