en(courage).

I love how encouragement has the word courage built right into it.

And I know, it’s no accident.

I don’t know if we realize how powerful our words are. I mean, how amazing that we can make someone’s life better by what we say.

Just today, someone surprised me with a very kind message on facebook. And the thing is, I haven’t seen this person in quite some time. I’ve been gone; she’s been gone. And it’s been that way for a while now.

But the other thing is, she was actually here sometime in January, I think, and I was here too. And though I saw her, I barely said two words to her. This was because, at that time in my life, making eye contact with anyone at my church was difficult. In fact, I rarely did it. I didn’t know what people were thinking about me, what people knew about the intimate details of my story. Suddenly I was the abused kid at the birthday party; everybody else was eating cake and excited about shiny pink packages, while I was wondering what it was that made people smile, anyway. And there were my bruises. They were marks that told the world so clearly how I was not loved, let alone the fact that I was not wearing a party dress and laughing at all their jokes.

And those aren’t exactly the kids who sign up to be on the welcoming team. And well, neither was I, at the time. I perfectly planned my timing for church. I’d get there just after it already started, and leave just before it ended–thereby dodging the hardest part about church for me: people. Interacting with them. Parrying their questions and comments. It wasn’t God who bothered me at all; it was all the people and, quite simply, I was terrified of their thoughts.

Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if I hurt some people during my frightened animal stage. It wouldn’t surprise me if they thought I was being a ______ (insert whatever word you’d like there. kinda like mad libs. and who says this blog doesn’t have games?).

But this kind person, she didn’t mention anything about the way I barely spoke to her. She simply said this:

Jess, your heart is beautiful – really precious. and the way you express yourself is simply lovely.
just thought I’d tell you that.

And I was both humbled and encouraged by that. Very much so. Humbled, because I know I could have made a point to be kinder to her when she was here, and yet she says this anyway. Encouraged, because–well, do I have to explain it? Those are some encouraging words. I think you can see why. You guys are very smart, after all.

So let’s all go be like her. If you’re kind of wondering what the heck you’re supposed to do on this earth, anyway, that could be a start. Go say something kind, something that puts courage into someone else.

What a gift we can give each other.