encouraging word

“Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad.” -Pro.12:25 KJV

It started out as a rather routine Sunday school exercise. Attempting to illustrate the importance of words and the meanings they bear, we went around the circle each sharing an instance when someone had spoken a word of encouragement into our lives at some point along the way that had a particular impact on us. The average age in the room was near fifty which was illuminating as these secure, well-grounded Christian people began recounting episodes in their lives which, more times than not, had happened decades ago. The stories started spilling out of various circumstances and times when someone had affirmed them and brought hope to their roomful of doubts.

One mature lady reached back to her high school days when in a conference with a couple of teachers, one of them remarked how, in her opinion, this young student could do anything she wished and affirmed her abilities. It was a thought that had never struck into her young and immature mind. A lawyer in the room told of another high school teacher who had singled her out with a compliment and a challenge. “You can write,” she told her, “and I want you to take this college level test.” As a result, she did and scored exceedingly well. But after earning an exemption from English coursework at college and completing an undergraduate program in finance, she found herself in law school once again having to write. Her first paper came back with a big fat “C” on it, and she thought her world was crumbling around her. As she sat crying in the student center, a professor came along who reassured her that one bad grade does not doom a career. “I know you and have studied your admission papers. You have what it takes.” And that began a long and fruitful mentoring relationship that brought her to where she is today.

A pre-school teacher recalled how an otherwise uncommunicative parent had written a note at the end of a term thanking her and the other teachers for all they had meant to her child and their family. It was a huge encouragement in an otherwise thankless environment. A retired teacher related how a student had returned to affirm that she had made a difference in a young life. It was a huge comfort that she had not labored in vain. Another teacher had recalled a truculent band student who had dropped out much to his relief and was surprised to hear positive and grateful words from this student some years later in spite of his self-confessed immaturity at the time.

Another woman related the intense emotional and legal struggles surrounding the settling of an estate in her dealings with a not-so-lovable real estate agent. After much travail of spirit and urges to kill, she decided to give grace and allow time for the agent to do the right thing. After all the legal wrangling and matters were settled, that agent returned to offer words of thanks for her acts of deliberate graciousness. It was a confirmation that God’s ways are higher and better than our ways. A middle aged gentleman shared how he had known he had great potential as a young student but had fought with feelings of failure all his life. His wife, one day, affirmed that he was actually ideally suited for a life as a purchasing agent, and it had made a huge difference in his life.

What struck me most was the depth of doubt that each of us wake up to and walk with each day. We manage to function quite well anyway but desperately need to hear those words of affirmation and encouragement spoken into our lives by those we respect. How quickly these folks recalled instances that had happened often years and years before with such clarity amplifies for me the importance of these words of vision, affirmation, and encouragement spoken into one another’s hearts. There is no call for flattery here or for ignoring the chasm of original sin that rips through all our lives. But the power of a healing word is as strong a medicine as any. We walk among and pass by those who lie by the sides of the road having been assaulted by the thieves of insult, weariness, discouragement, or injustice. May we have the eyes to see the broken in spirit and the wisdom to minister the healing balm of a life-giving word.