really good news for a change

I never like to hear bad news.

    Hello, this is your mechanic. I have some bad news for you - it was the transmission.
    Hello, this is your tax lady.  The bad news is your refund is a lot less than last year.
    Hello, this is every health care facility in North Carolina, sorry for the bad news but we have no openings.


But in the hospital the bad news can be.....really bad.


I talked to a sweet couple last week.  After a lifetime of work and children, they both retired in April.  Finally they could travel and garden and relax.  The first of May brought bad news of his just discovered, aggressive cancer.  They are reeling.  And trying to change their dreams and plans.


I listened to a doctor, anxious about delivering bad news to young parents - that their beautiful new baby was totally blind.


I patted a woman's back as she tried to absorb the bad news.  Her husband's latest heart attack had taken him.


I left the hospital today thinking that if I am hungry for good news, there are people here who are starving for it.  It's no wonder this beautiful good news quote jumped out at me.  Read it a couple of times -


"Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all."  Frederich Buechner



How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!" Isaiah 52:7