Keith Montgomery Media

Last week I saw how beautiful the world can be and how ugly the world can be.
First, that which is beautiful.

My nephew, Peyton Stephen Sims, was born on Wednesday the 21st. To greet him into the world was his mother and father, all four grandparents, his uncle, and a friend of his mother’s. Waiting “patiently”, his aunt, great grandparents, and all the rest of his family, offered prayers and anticipation. Everything went fine. Peyton was peaceful.

It was so amazing to be around all of it. It was so encouraging to be around my family and to see all the love around. It was truly a blessing. Peyton is so lucky to have the parents he does. I cant wait to see how he grows up.

Now the ugly. On Friday I got to see how terrible the world can be. I cant go into details, but I had jury duty. I got to hear about how evil people can be. How deceitful. How escapist. How dark. As someone who wants to believe in the best in people, it tears me apart. It just makes me constantly wonder what it is that makes people bad? What makes people want to hurt other people? I know it is a broken world we live in, but how can the realities of Wednesday and Friday both exist?

Days like Friday push us to lose hope, but days like Wednesday reinforce hope. I do believe that Wednesday greatly outweighed Friday in my heart. I mean, seriously, look at that kid!

I guess sometimes it is a matter of deciding, will we hold on [to] hope or let the pain and suffering consume us?