During my mid-twenties I caught up with a long-lost high school friend. He ¢â‚¬â„¢d always carried a few extra kilos, but now he was carrying several more.

My hair had already begun showing its pathological fear of heights ¢â‚¬”which has some positives: like being a load off my mind; or saving on hair shampoo ¢â‚¬”but I decided to adopt a spin doctor ¢â‚¬â„¢s approach.

 ¢â‚¬Å“Have you ever considered us as trend setters? ¢â‚¬  I asked. He looked puzzled, so I explained,  ¢â‚¬Å“I ¢â‚¬â„¢m already going bald and you ¢â‚¬â„¢re already developing your middle-age spread. ¢â‚¬ 

His smiling reply took me by surprise:  ¢â‚¬Å“Maybe, but I can always lose weight! ¢â‚¬ 

Since then, my hair has kept disappearing ¢â‚¬”but he hasn ¢â‚¬â„¢t lost any weight ¢â‚¬ ¦

In our imperfect world, positives ¢â‚¬”or even balance ¢â‚¬”can be hard to find.

Have you noticed how newscasts start at   ¢â‚¬Å“Good evening, ¢â‚¬    before explaining why the day hasn ¢â‚¬â„¢t been so good? Conversely, negatives are clearly allowed no oxygen in the advertising world or in the spin-doctored messages of politics.

God sees who we are on the inside ¢â‚¬”at our best and our worst ¢â‚¬”but neither extreme affects his love for us. And as we embrace his acceptance; he begins to flavour our world with his honesty and his generosity ¢â‚¬”so we become agents of his hope for people around us.  Then, as they also embrace this positivity, they begin to find courage to explore their positives with enough wisdom to recognise the reality ¢â‚¬”and the limits ¢â‚¬”of anything that ¢â‚¬â„¢s trying to hem them in.

Noel Mitaxa