The Power Of Encouragement

I was reading an article about spiritual gifts a couple weekends ago and that got me to thinking about encouragement (not the gift, just the act in and of itself) and how powerful it can be. I was remembering specific instances when someone encouraged me in some way and the effect it had.

I remember a note I received from a friend a few years back when we both had work-study jobs in the same department at the community college we attended. I was behind on a project or two for my classes and was fretting about how I was going to get the work done in a short amount of time. One day when I arrived at work, I found an encouraging note on my desk. It was just a plain piece of notebook paper with a handwritten message on it. It was very simple, but very powerful. It literally made my day. I still have that piece of paper! And more recently, my grandma left a note for me with several Bible verses on it that she thought would be helpful. They were all verses I was familiar with, but it meant a lot that she had taken the time to write them down for me. It was...well...encouraging, and I guess that's the whole point.

I think it was Zig Ziglar that said, "A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could, because someone else thought they could." I'm afraid I don't offer encouragement to others nearly enough. I might think about it, but the words in my head never seem to find an outlet, as least not as often as I would like for them to.