I awake after a restless night. Three hours of darkness spent tossing unable to grasp sleep. My mind drifting to prayer as it often does when I wake as the world slumbers. Sleep interrupted for reasons unknown.
The days tasks already planned I push away the temptation to reach for sleep again.
Heart remains heavy as I step through the motions of my day. And still I wonder why. This melancholy soul sensing something I can not quite define.
But the motions they help. The sweet time with friendships that continue to grow. Discussions of lessons learned in being still.
Be still and know that I am God. – Psalm 46:10
And there I find rays of hope. In the stillness. In the friendships.
Clouds paint shades of white across the western sky as I drive home. Yet still on the periphery my heart senses something.
Perhaps the exhaustion is simply taking its toll on my emotions.
And then a kind word received from someone about a recent photo.
These words? They brought hope to my weary heart.
Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11
Do we realize how encouraging words, words that build up, bring hope to the person to whom they are given?
Yet how I often forget to give encouraging words. The one gift that brings hope to me I forget to give. If I am honest I fail at speaking life giving words more often than I would like to admit.
I focus too often on the annoyances. Forgetting to tell my husband what a wonderful dad he is. Forgetting to share words of wonder to my son in the abilities God has given him. And so many, many others. Blinders constraining my sight to my own tasks at hand and feelings of now.
An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up. Proverbs 12:25
How often do we realize the impact our words or even the words we do not speak have on others?
