Hearing encouragement from the right person can make all the difference.
I have a friend who spoke the secret of my heart out loud.
She had no idea that’s what she’d done at the time she said it. But with her words, she gave a dream wings.
“You should be a writer.”
In the very early days of writing my blog, it was her voice that gave me the confidence to click the ‘Publish’ button.
And to write again.
I quickly realized I needed to thank her.
So I did.
And then, well, grace came back to find her, too.
Because in big and small ways, that’s what He does.
Our emails mark the trail….
From: Gretchen
Sent: Sun 10/05/14 4:20 PM
To: Laura
Laura,
So, I’m sharing this with you because I keep feeling prompted to do so…probably because on more than one occasion now you’ve told me I should be a writer. Whether you were serious or not, I don’t know, but you couldn’t have known you were speaking truth to a private dream.
So – after years of thinking about it, I’m finally taking the leap and trying a little bit….[I] created a blog…It isn’t perfect…I’ve posted for 3 days and hope to be faithful to it….I hope you’ll pray for me. 🙂
Here’s the link….
Blessings,
Gretchen
From: Laura
Sent: Mon 10/06/14 10:07 AM
To: Gretchen
Wow Wow Wow…
I had just arrived home from taking the kids to school. I was still sitting in the garage waiting for Joel Osteen to come to a break in his talk so that I could run the XM radio inside to finish listening there. I was debating whether this particular episode was even worthy of my time as I had to get on with my “daily duties” and it wasn’t particularly striking a chord with me. I decided to ease my guilt by multi-tasking – I began to check the emails on my phone.
He kept stressing the point about how even a passing statement to someone that seems like nothing, could mean the world to them. We have no idea about how we can affect the course of someone’s life. We should never underestimate ourselves and the power of our words. I thought, “Ok. Makes sense. Still, no big aha moment.” …and then I opened your email…I may not have given any propulsion to your dream, but I feel like God was telling me, “Yes, even YOU, Laura.” My fists were clenched and waving as I audibly got the willies- in a joyful way. God is fun sometimes!
I went to your blog and read every last bit. You are amazing! 3 People?!
I hope you shout it from the rooftops so that everyone can experience your talent and inspiration! (add to favorites-click!)
In the meantime, I WILL pray for you and I will remember today’s message for a long time.
L
From: Gretchen
Sent: Tue 10/07/14 7:53 PM
To: Laura
Laura,
What an awesome experience to have all of those “promptings” for me to tell you then come together so that Monday morning you would get your God moment. He really is amazing. :).
Thank you again for the encouragement. I think the three followers are all friends…. My confidence goes up and down.
I’m certainly not ready to post it to FB or anything.… Facing that fear is hard.
But anyway – every bit of support is awesome, and helps me feel like maybe I’m on the right track.
Blessings,
Gretchen
I did eventually post to FaceBook and over time, in infinitesimally small ways, living a secret dream started to feel less scary. More like taking flight.