I know I MAY have been going on rather excessively about TEARS TO DANCING, but it seems to have taken over my life somewhat! I’m sure I’ll calm down soon, but right now I’m basking in my book honeymoon, so bare with me?
On Monday I had another delivery from another lovely UPS dude in brown shorts- this time the box contained 50 copies of my book. The UPS guy wasn’t quite as excited as I envisioned when I told him it was my published book, but he didn’t roll his eyes either. Thankfully, I have trained my youngest son to exhibit spontaneous joy very effectively, so he celebrated with me. And took this pic:
I am feeling rather like a mother hen wanting desperately for all her chicks to be safely under wing at the moment. My man is in the U.K. celebrating his dad’s 80th birthday, and my daughter is still at Uni in Montreal powering through her finals. It’s just me and the boys and the bulldog at home, and I find myself craving my family complete. Just a couple more weeks and my wish will be granted…
One of the MANY (emboldened in case he reads this!) things I miss when Lyndon is away, is his encouragement. He is such a trooper- cheers me on in whatever hair-brained scheme or fad I embark on. He gives me the boost of confidence I need, and picks me up and dusts me off when I stumble. He is the reason I started writing in the first place- he urged me to follow my heart and believed I could actually make it work. What a guy! We ALL need encouragers in our lives.
Hebrews 10 v.24, 25: “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds… encouraging one another…”
This past week I was an encourager- didn’t even realize until after the fact- sometimes God just gives us words to build a person up in the nick of time. In turn, I was gratefully on the receiving end of someone else’s encouragement, and it meant the world to me. When somebody gives us a boost in the form of kind words, a card, e-mail, a plate of cookies or a hug, how amazing does that feel? It gives us a spring in our step, a fuzzy feeling that all is well in the world, even temporarily.
As Christians, we are called to “spur one another on”, to cheer on our brothers and sisters, with or without pom-poms. A definition of “spur” is “to urge or incite to accelerated development”. I could literally do with a prod from a spur every now and then to get me going. We all have seasons where work sucks, ministry is an up-hill battle, and raising a family is an absolute nightmare, so don’t you think a little encouragement would go a long way? You will never know how many people you have blessed by being an encourager. It’s really quite painless, and you might just ignite the flame for a budding author… or musician, pastor, missionary, doctor…
This particularly encouraged author will be doing her first book signing this Saturday at the Willow Park Church Lades Spring Conference in Kelowna (rather excited about that!), and then her number one encourager flies home on Sunday! Not that I’ve missed him or anything- let’s just say within 2 hours of his departure last week the bulldog did something very unladylike in our entrance TWICE (she was apparently stressed that Daddy had left her) and the powder room toilet got clogged. Sadly these incidents were totally unrelated- she is a bulldog after all. And I did get to use a plunger for the first time. Awesome!
Hurry home, honey! x
