THE ENCOURAGERS LIFE

  As the dog toddled beside me sniffing every scent, smell or gross thing that he could find all I could think about was the feeling I had. I thought about this often on our walks. About how I wasn't where I needed or wanted to be. I thought about all the hills I would have to climb to get there. All the mountains in the way. All the things I didn't know. The skills I don't yet have. And the overwhelm of 'cluelessness,' would come meaning by the time I would return home I would be returning to life feeling like those mountains where higher, those hills were steeper and the skills I would have to learn were impossible for my brain to comprehend. I loathed feeling that way. Because the fact is I am a hard worker. I accomplish in the face of my limitations. I am like a Jack Russell pup who refuses to give up the toy. I am relentless. Yet adorable. But I also get tired. Discouraged. Demotivated. Just like everyone else. We are human. And that is both wonderful and a pai...

  Some of us search. We long for the moment when the calm will wash over us. The a-ha moment. The moment when everything clicks. However, years go by and the pangs within us never fade. We never feel like we made it. We never feel like we can relax. Instead we feel unworthy. We feel as though he aren't good enough. Smart enough. Good looking enough. Well dressed enough. In a world that is fast paced, it can feel as though we are always chasing something. The dream. The goal. The qualification. The job. We say to ourselves, "If I can only get this, then I will feel secure.  I will know that I am good enough.  I will feel like I have finally arrived." And then we get there and its anti-climactic, because we are still us with that qualification charged with sustaining that dream, goal or job.  The pressure never leaves. And for those whose lives take twists and turns. Where reinvention is a melting pot of work experience and service and the unthought-of r...

  From my days as a youth worker I remember one particular night when the conversation went to Christianity. There was a great atmosphere that night. The usual group of guys were in and playing pool became the center focus. We laughed, played and chatted over their day and plans. One lad piped up and said, ‘I don’t think that I could become a Christian right now. I will just make too many mistakes. I just know I couldn’t do it. So I will wait and hopefully I will be able to be one when I am older.’ When I look back at the conversation it hurts. The boy hasn’t become a Christian and I  feel, it’s a testimony of a living a half life.  Its an example of having something inside you, call out, but yet you feel you aren’t worthy or capable of answering it. Therefore it simply doesn’t happen. How many people have had the same experience? Unrealised dreams? Untapped potential? A yearning never fulfilled? All because they looked at their lives and thought, maybe one day I will be ...

I have been in the stage of my journey, were I have been questioning a lot. "Am I able to do this? Look at those other people crushing it, what am I doing? Will this work out?" and so on and so on. The thing with being an encourager is that people presume that you have it all together.  That you know how to rise above every circumstance.   That you have a fix for every situation. That you are there to shoulder others and that we have mastered your own, 'deepest and darkest.' The fact is, I need the words that come through me as much as those you who are reading these pages. I struggle and have struggled. And I am glad for it. Because then I know how others feel. And our experiences make us powerful. It allows us to remind others of the capabilities inside them. I know who I am. I have spent decades developing that knowledge. I know what I am called to do and nothing will stop me living that dream. However it doesn't mean I don't struggle. It doesn't mean I...