He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy. Job 8:21
Picture in your mind a child getting very excited when she’s just heard the news that she gets to receive something or do something that she’s wanted for a very long time, something so important it has been a constant point of endless conversation.
There she is in patent leather shoes, and a colorful dress with just a touch of mess in her hair. Her eyes are wide open, and she is staring up at you in disbelief, and then it starts. Her little fingers begin to twitch, and her little feet start to move almost as if she’s trying to dance for the first time. Then, from somewhere beyond the ability of the human eye to see, a surge of delighted anticipatory energy surges through her body and, wait, just a moment, here it comes….the squeal!
That’s how I felt the moment a publishing company called to say they wanted to read the rest of my “work.” My work? They called it my “work”! My fingers just twitched!
But not for false hopes or a moment of pleasure or acceptance. Oh, no. If you knew me personally, you would know that I pretty much call it like I see it. It’s not that I have a disregard for what others think about some point in my life, but I have made my choice to walk this walk, and I have paid some hefty prices for the mistakes I have made. If I can keep someone else’s feet out of the mire I have been in, I am all about it!
I can be tenacious in believing for the best on behalf of others. The driving force behind this insistence is in knowing my past failures, doubts, and pains and the deliverance and grace I have received. If I can walk this Jesus journey, anybody can, I truly believe that. No, in fact, I know it because that is precisely what the Word of God tells us. Encouraging others is a passion of mine. A God-given burning desire within me. Sometimes it's a beautiful thing. Sometimes, I trip over my good intention like it's the corner of the rug, turned up, sitting there in the dark waiting for you as you make your way to the light and the coffee pot.
Sometimes when someone else looks into your house from your front porch they have a new fresh different perspective that you are too close to see. Sharing with others all the good things I see from the front porch windows is something I do best. That’s because I believe that everyone has the potential for good, to do good, to be better, to love more, and to laugh louder! If I can encourage others to begin to enjoy those attributes in their own lives by writing one story of one experience, one blessing, one answered prayer, how could I not? Writing to encourage is a natural expression of my passion for helping.
There is however a human nature I’m dragging around with me through this life. It weighs on me more on some days than others. I do have moments when it completely weighs me down, and I cannot seem to move. Some days when I am struggling with my human nature, I make not such great choices. Those choices almost always lead to not-so-great consequences. There’s a learning opportunity right there though!
In the very middle of those consequences is yet another opportunity to make yet another choice-to learn from them or not. I used to tell my children that I learn slowly, but I learn well. Most of us learn the hard way, especially those of us who are “late bloomers.” Plenty of us can honestly say “been there, done that and I got the consequences T-shirt, the wrinkle, the traffic ticket, the divorce papers, the arrest record, the addiction, the diagnosis.”
It’s in the living of the lessons that allow experiences to teach me. It’s in the seeking of God’s word, His plan, His promises, and His love. Putting the struggles, the fears, the challenges, and His answers down on paper about how this loving God has walked me through every single moment of every single one of them, and then having another person respond and say ‘Wow! That encourages me” that makes me write, and write, and write.
What’s your passion? What is one thing, that if you allow yourself to consider, makes your insides smile? What do you do well that you would love to do while glorifying your redeemer? What experiences have you had in your own life that make you a unique tool for His use?
Because you are you know, unique. You are the only 'you' He has ever created. You are the only 'you' who has the sum of experiences that you have. You are the only one who can walk in the gifts and the jobs He has prepared for you to walk in. I can’t do yours, and you can’t do mine. A few days ago, I had a publisher tell me they want to see the rest of my “work.” If you will excuse me now, I have some things to do right after I turn on my computer and dig my patent leather shoes out of the back of my closet.
I think I feel a dance and a squeal coming on!
Pass the Grace,
Jan
Nice!