You know what helps me on days like this? Days filled with economic gloom-and-doom prognosticating and venomous political ads (even the local ones) and Ahmadinejad-Bush squareoffs and mortgage company fraud and racism and all the other stories that paint these troubled times we live in?

You know what helps me on days like this?

A dose of perspective.

I go to a place like The Voice of the Martyrs and I realize that my brothers and sisters around the globe have it much worse than I do.

I go to Voices from Darfur and I listen to the heartbreaking stories of these survivors of genocide. And I think about the 400,000 who have lost their lives in Darfur.

I think about Mission Lazarus and the work that’s going on in Honduras and I remember to pray for the precious people there. Especially the hungry children with those empty bowls.

I think about all of that and when I return to all the problems here, things don’t seem quite as bad. I don’t know…if you’re like me, you need a little perspective from time to time. Especially on days like today.