A Compliment?

This past Monday was Compliment Day.

There are several tools at that site I found to be encouraging. In fact, I felt a little better about myself just reading them!

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A guest preacher was called upon to fill in for the regular minister, who had gone away on vacation.

The substitute preacher began his message by explaining a little more about what "substitute" meant.

"If you break a window," he explained, "and then place cardboard there instead, that is a substitute. Not as good as a real replacement, but one that'll do in a pinch." He then went on to give a rousing good sermon.

After the service, one woman shook hands with him vigorously and exclaimed, "Wonderful! Let me give you a compliment, young man ... you were no substitute, you were a real pane!"

[Net 153s Smile A Day; retold by Mark Raymond]

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WORD for YOUR WEEK: In the realm of polite Christianity, when something isn't very good yet the occasion calls for us to pay a compliment to the thing's creator or performer, we tend to fall back on saying something like, "Well, that was certainly unique." The word, as so many do, has its basis in Latin - it originates in the word "unus," which means "one." (Think union, unite, unanimous, even "E Pluribus Unum," which is on American currency. It means "Out of Many, One.") When you use the word unique, you are saying something is one of a kind.

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