Encouragement...

I wrote down three separate verses this week that really stood out to me and I thought I'd share them this morning. They each stood out at different times and for different reasons but I love all three of them.

"Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up." - Proverbs 12:25

I'm a worrier. Big time. I can find anything to worry about. Often, I don't speak my worries out loud but at times when I do someone says something that really makes me think about how silly my worries are. When others are worried I hope that I'm an encourager to them. My goal is to begin being more deliberate about being encouraging to others.

"Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original." - Galatians 5:26, The Message

I'm almost finished with Beth Moore's So Long Insecurity and this was one of the verses I copied down while I was reading the other night. Right now, I'm reading about how that we need to be focused on "pursuing a life of purpose." Why, why, why are we so concerned with what society focuses on (I know that's a common thread on my blog), so worried about what others think of us that we often let it stop us from living the life God wants us to. Stay with me while I include some things I underlined in Beth's book.

"Beloved, pursuing a life of purpose is one of our strongest guards against buying the superficiality that feeds insecurity. What if we stopped thinking about it and started doing it?...People out there need help. And you have something inside you that needs to help them. So do I. It's the way ours souls were built....Unless we want to let [the media] completely consume and corrode us, we're going to have to know beyond a doubt that life is about something greater...The less we are willing to get outside our own lives, the more self-absorbed and miserable we become."

We need a purpose! 

"Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God and I trust him. For he will rescue you from every trap and protect you from deadly disease. He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings." - Psalm 91:1-4

This was from our preacher's message on Sunday. She also spoke about the worship song that goes:

Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary

Pure and holy, tried and true

With thanksgiving, I'll be a living

Sanctuary for You

She also told the story about the man who lived through a tornado that hit his church in Yazoo City, Mississippi, just over a week ago. He hid under the communion table in his church (where he had gone to make copies for a meeting) while the tornado tore apart the entire sanctuary. The communion table and the pulpit were the only things not torn apart. That's not what caught my attention, though. When he was interviewed on Fox News, Gretchen asked him if they planned to rebuild. He responded that the people were the church, not the building itself. The church was still intact. (As a sidenote, the same church was burned down ten years ago.)

I learn so much each day in my Bible reading. I don't read as much as I should and I spend a lot more time on things that shouldn't be important (i.e., Facebook and other blogs!!!) but I get so much from the time that I do give to God.

Need proof that God is good? Reed Putnal is on his way home today, over three weeks before he is even supposed to be here. Heather and I spoke last night on the phone and she was describing how far he's come. She made the comment that I need to look at his pictures because they show just how far he'd come. (I didn't see him until he was 4 weeks old.) She hasn't posted some of them on her Caringbridge site because he was so delicate and fragile looking. I made the comment that she had seen him well before she was ever supposed to lay eyes on her baby. But, she knows exactly how far he has come in his seven weeks of life. She's seen it with her own eyes. God is SO good.