Encourage Yourself!

Yesterday I talked about encouraging others. Today I’m talking about you encouraging you!

Yes, we can and many times will have to encourage ourselves. There will be times you have to stand alone. Others will not be there for you. They will not see what you see. They will not have your vision, your principles or motivation. You will have to hold the line by yourself. Take courage! This will build fortitude (another word for strength) so you can go further, become stronger, last longer, endure more – (that doesn’t sound fun, it sounds like hardship involved!!!)

We’ll have to chew our own meat – no ground up baby food involved. But I’ve heard it said meat is for the strong. No carnivore diet spoken of intentionally here, but meat makes strong muscles and we’ll need them to weather our storms, mental, emotional, spiritual and physical.

So, you had the idea to build the first lighthouse at sea alerting ships to steer clear and not get dashed to pieces in the dark. ‘How are you going to do that’, somebody said. ‘You can’t, the surf is too strong, water too deep, tide comes in, you’ll get washed out’… and on and on.

Yet! Somebody kept at it. They planned and planned and thought and thought and tried and finally the first successful one was built and saved many lives. ‘I could never do that!’ Maybe not your area of expertise, but there is something that you and you alone can and need to do. You – yes you – plan and think and try things out until you succeed. Begin to encourage yourself more!

Now back to the lighthouse. No one built it completely by themselves, but there had to be an idea, maybe guarded at first until it could develop and ‘build up steam’, and then others became involved. It began with them.

Today I am not giving up on my plan, thought, dream to ….

The Eye of Beauty

Can you see it? See what? See beauty around you!

It’s not a foreign word, although in some ways it seems disregarded.

Just what is beauty? It is seen in many ways…

Calm; color; vibrancy; order; cleanliness; clarity; detail; simplicity…

Beauty comes by inspiration – meaning God-breathed. Everything God made was beautiful. It had order, rhyme and reason – purpose to it. He breathed it out with his words, and it became. He spoke us into existence and said, ‘Go tend the garden…you’re made in My image…make more life, perpetuate it. Feed it. Encourage it. Take it and make it wherever you go. Be inspired by what I’ve done. I will inspire you to make more beauty.’

If we look closely at what God made, we will develop an eye for beauty. True beauty lasts. It is deeper than looks only.

Beauty brings comfort, peace, calm, joy, hope, encouragement, trust, relaxation, contentment…

How do you feel when you look at something beautifully made? Does it inspire you to make something beautiful or do something beautiful? It can become contagious.

By beauty, I don’t mean pretty. Beauty has an uplifting element to it…a nobility if you will, in that it causes you to notice it, and brings a surge of hopefulness.

I don’t understand how it all works, but it does.

What do you see and how does it affect you?

Afraid to Write

We all have something important inside of us that needs to come out for the good of humanity. We want to say it, we want to write it, but we hold back….Why?

I fight these feelings all the time, as evidenced by the lulls in writing. Perhaps it’s fear that what I say or think isn’t that important so just better keep it to yourself. It’s not all that important otherwise somebody else would have said it…but what if you are that somebody?  What if you are the somebody who with your words could impact another in a way to change our world for the better? Think Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Oprah and the list goes on.

Well, I’m nobody like them; however they began as nobodies and kept speaking their heart and change began. Every river begins with a small underground trickle which becomes a stream, a creek and eventually the river they flow into.

Don’t dam up your words, your well, which wants to flow sending good waters to thirsty weary people dying inside for affection, attention, approval, encouragement they need. You can help quench their thirst and cause them to grow again.

Actually, I wrote this article about myself. I have been holding back the waters in my well, fighting what might come out, whether people would like the water I provide.

Join me now.

Let’s unclog our wells and send healing waters of words to the people around us.