We call this devotional “Encouraging Words.” And I hope and pray that these words do encourage you.  Today, however, I’d like to point out that YOU yourself can be an encouragement to someone else in your life. It’s scriptural, you know.  We’re told in the Bible to “… encourage one another and build up one another” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). You may be thinking, I don’t know a lot of Bible verses I can quote to people. And I certainly don’t know the solution to their problems. I don’t know what to say to them.

Did you ever think of the fact that words aren’t the only way you can encourage a person.  A cup of coffee together might be just the thing to raise their spirit.  Maybe some of your homemade soup would help them to know that you care. Or a rose from your garden.

My husband once counseled with a woman whose husband showered her with expensive gifts—jewelry and furs and valuable artwork.  But he was a man who traveled a lot on business. His gifts were actually a substitute for the attention she really craved from him. “You know,” she told my husband, “If he would just pick a rose from the garden and bring it to me and tell me that he loves me, it would mean more than all the expensive gifts.”

Stop right now and think of one person in your sphere of influence you could encourage today. Perhaps just a phone call would let your friend know that he or she is in your thoughts and prayers. Or a text on your phone or note in the mail. It doesn’t have to be long or elaborate. Knowing that you’re thinking of him or her might be all it takes to give them the courage they need to keep going another day.