Real encouragement
I've been working on a talk for a church women's group on the topic of encouragement. I thought I'd share some of my thinking about this topic with you. And if you, say, live somewhere warm and would like me to do it in person, feel free to invite me. I'm cold!Encouragement is one of those topics that can become a bit ho hum. Well, maybe that's just me. When I was in youth group, another girl declared that she had the gift of encouragement. This was quite annoying because what she thought was encouraging wasn't actually encouraging for me. Little notes on flowery paper of smultchy blah, blah with a token Bible verse felt empty to me. Hugs with cries of 'You're the best Jenny!', just irritated me. Consequently I thought that encouragement wasn't something I either needed or felt I needed to give. It just seemed dumb to me.
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| This sort of thing makes me a bit queasy |
And the question that the Bible asks is, 'what does it look like for me to encourage another Christian?' and the Bible gives us the reason for encouraging.
What's your take on/experience of good/bad efforts at encouragement?
Comments
To me, encouragement is giving someone what will help them continue. Which might be: your experience is a hard one, and I'm thankful you're on my team because of the wisdom you have gained, and bring to us. Or: you show amazing patience. I expect there's a lot goes on inside that we don't see, but what we see is amazing.
Maybe your friend was still in the early stages of developing her gift?
"And the question that the Bible asks is, 'what does it look like for me to encourage another Christian?' and the Bible gives us the reason for encouraging." I hope there is going to be a follow up blog post, when you have done your talk, with what you have found out about what you have discovered the Bible has to say about these things. Pretty please.
And also when I was at uni one of my friends used to rub my arm to encourage me, or comfort me. It took a lot of strength not to snatch my arm away, give her a cold withering don't touch my arm look and yell BACK OFF. So I guess we all encourage in different ways and need to be sensitive to it. Want an arm rub?
Had to giggle at the previous comment since the thought of the arm rub creeps me out a bit too. Generally I'm not much of a toucher or hugger.
But I have discovered over the years, like you and others here have said, that it can be different for each person but also at different times. The kind word, the well-timed note (Meredith is good at those!) or even an encouraging text message when I'm feeling down, have all helped at different times. And I'm even getting better at the hugging thing (I think, sometimes it still feels a bit awkward to me), since I know that others do find it encouraging...
Looking forward to hearing more about this topic.
However the trite, brush off: 'I'm praying for you' is profoundly discouraging if you really need some physical support and/or TLC and you find out thats about as much love and attention you're going to get. It's not much help being 'prayed' for when you're ill or in need and you are struggline to deal with the basic necessities of day to day living.