For September 28th:

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up.” 

1 Thessalonians 5:11

               When I took the Spiritual Gifts survey, I must admit that I was a bit disappointed.  So much so that I took it again.   Sure enough, there at the top was my first spiritual gift: encouragement.  I thought, "that sure is a dinky gift."  Yes, I know what the Bible says, that we can't all be the eye or the hand, it takes all our gifts.   But, encouragement?  How could I even do anything with that?

               After I fumed a while that I didn't even like that gift, I realized that God knows me even better than I know myself.  When I read Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages, I noted that my way of expressing love was through acts of service.  I finally made the connection that acts of service can be used to show love and encouragement to others.  Maybe this gift wasn't all that bad after all.

               I recently had a close friend who faced life threatening cancer.  If you have known anyone in crisis, you know that sometimes there is a helpless feeling.  What can I do to help?  All my life, I've heard people respond to others in crisis saying, "I'll be praying for you."  Sometimes, I think that is almost a trite saying much like the cashier at the grocery store saying, "Have a nice day."  Do those people really pray?  How do you know they are praying?  I just couldn't bring myself to say, "I'll be praying for you" no matter how sincere and well intentioned that I was.  I asked my friend if it would be OK if I prayed for her via email every day.  That way, no matter how sick she was from her treatment, we could share a moment together with God.  She checked her email on her telephone in bed when she was too sick to get out of bed.  She told me that the prayers meant a lot to her and encouraged her.  She knew that I really was praying for her. 

              I started each email with an encouraging scripture and then prayed, thanking God for the many blessings he has sent, then prayed specifically for her needs at that time.  God blessed me far more than she could possibly have gotten from the email prayers.  Through this commitment of prayer throughout her illness, I learned that God can use me to encourage others. 

               I guess I'm pretty happy now with the gift of encouragement.  I'll be much more open to finding ways to use that gift now.  God does bless us with different spiritual gifts.  I'm glad he showed me a way to use mine.

Jackie Caruso