Say What You Need to Say

Several years ago I went back to the workplace after being at home with our children for about ten years. A close friend had started a company and it was beginning to take off, so as our last child entered school, I re-entered the workforce on a part-time basis. It was an office job in a two story building with many workers downstairs, and only the president of the company and the accountant upstairs, where I would become the third person on the second floor.

Within the first few days, the accountant and I realized we would become good friends, with many things in common and a mutual respect for one another. I don’t think I will ever forget something she did on one of my first days of employment; she came over to my desk and blessed me in the kindest way possible. The accountant looked me in the eye and smiled her beautiful smile and said, “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you are here, I have prayed for someone like you to come upstairs for a long time” and she went back to her desk.

The effect this had on me was profound. I was insecure about working again, certain that I had nothing to offer the company and this kind woman spoke genuine encouragement to me when I really needed it. Honestly, I replayed her words over and over in my mind, because they made me feel so welcome and because it felt like affirmation that I was where I was meant to be. I’ve never told her how much her words meant to me, I doubt that she even remembers it because she inspires those around her regularly.

We have the choice to speak genuine encouragement into the lives and hearts of those around us every day, or to withhold those words out of fear, vulnerability and selfishness. Let’s choose to love.

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Hebrews 3:13