I’ve been looking at encouragement a lot. I am a natural encourager so I do see places to encourage, places where people have encouraged others and also where it does not happen.
For the last two years, which means it has now become a tradition, the little drama group I coordinate in at our church do a skit on something related to Christmas. The first year we did 4 disgruntled people at Christmas and how they had lost the meaning of the season – a frustrated housewife, a mad granny who was knitting Christmas, a selfish teenager and an overworked vicar. Last year we did a mother and daughter who had fallen out over something trivial and weren’t speaking and needed Jesus’s reconciliation. This year we are looking at Mary and how the angel and, her cousin. Elizabeth supported and encouraged her.
It has been an interesting development with the little group. I feel we have all gone, as people, from being slightly disgruntled with church and life in general, to being reconciled with life, church, ourselves, etc. The way, I think, it has happened is by encouraging each other. This group would not happen if our vicar didn’t expect something from us – which actually is encouraging in and of itself – but that we also all buoyed each other up and encouraged each other. Each of us has a different role and we all give the others the freedom to be who they are.
As I reflect on encouragement myself I think of how my life is changing for next year with my writing life become more central. There are a few people who have encouraged that but the big one has been when, on the Cinnamon writing retreat Jan, who runs Cinnamon Press, said she wanted to mentor me and my writing. To be mentored properly I cannot just have my writing as something I dip in and out of when I want to – or rather not when I want to but when I let all the other things that crowd my life butt out. I have to take it seriously and have to give it the time. Cinnamon then ran a competition for
bursaries which I bravely entered. I came equal second!! Another amazing encouragement. So because of this I am giving up a lot of things and concentrating on what I have always dreamed of doing since I was about 12 years old. It has taken me 45 years to get to this point but I am now here.
Even with that I could put myself down and think of all the wasted time but I will encourage me and say now is the time to seize the day. Carpe diem.
Going back to Mary in the Bible. We often talk of how amazing she was – and yes she was – but she was able to be amazing by the encouragement and support she got not just from God via the angel but from her cousin, Elizabeth. So I will finish this post as I will finish the skit we are going later on by saying: (and go with this even if you don’t believe in God. Substitute “God” for whatever works for you)
Mary and Elizabeth were so excited about being able to support and encourage each other so should we be that excited about supporting and encouraging each other.
We will often find ourselves in situations we can’t cope with on our own and need to remember God’s promises but also need others to remind us who God is and what He says.
So this Christmas time let’s stand together and support each other and then be amazed at what we can do
husband’s. Couldn’t have done it without him – both the getting married and the staying married. I feel like we’ve achieved quite a milestone. And you know what – we still like each other.
was most afraid of during this process and I said that whatever we decided I did not want to lose Ian’s friendship. And I can say 11 years after we started dating and 10 years to the day that we got married I do still have that friendship. And I am pleased about it.
year old! So many changes, many storms and yet we still want to hang out.
Yesterday whilst we were walking on the beach and looking at the mountains in the February sunshine we got a call to say that our house sale had completed then a hour or so later a call to say that our house purchase had been completed.
the journey to here too; the things we’ve walked through in the last few years which almost drove our marriage apart. I wonder why it didn’t? Both my husband and I have been in relationships that have ended in divorce without going through any of the traumas we went through. I wonder what we’ve had? Maybe it is that deep inside both of us there is this shared dream – of the sea and mountains – that has held us together? Who will know what it is that holds some people together and drags some people apart. But all I do know is that I couldn’t be where I am now without him. And it’s not just that he has the money. It’s much more than that. Standing with my slightly hard-work-at-times husband has meant that I could achieve much more than standing alone. There was a point when we got in the car on 10 days earlier to travel to Wales into temporary accommodation without either our house sale completed and being told the other house was nowhere near ready that I panicked. If it hadn’t been for Ian I would have jumped out the car and gone back to bed, but he held there in strength and kept it going.
When we got married my father-in-law had a picture for us, of us sawing a huge log with one of those 2 people saws, and he said that the way things worked best in a marriage was when each person did their bit and took their turn in pulling the saw through the wood when it was the right time to do it, and that if one pulled when they should have been guiding the push, or even pushed when the other wasn’t ready to pull then there would be problems. But if we could each just know when it was our turn to do the right thing then the log would be sawn smoothly and no one would get hurt. We’ve made a mess of this over our past 9 years at times, pushing when we should have been pulling, or even forcing a push when we should have just been supporting and guiding, pulling when the other was pulling too. Yup we’ve messed up at times but we’ve stayed the course. And as I write this I’ve realised that another dream has come true. Ok so Ian isn’t the knight in shining armour coming in on his white charger, in fact he looks very silly and uncomfortable on the back of a horse, but he is my friend and my companion, he’s there with me to walk through. He is someone I want to grow old with.
Aspirational Adventures 