The Encourager's Heart - Jan 2024

Dear Reader,

Thank you for not giving up on me. I have been busy writing my memoir this past year and one of the things I’ll be talking about today has been a development that has come out of that writing. God wanted me to finish the book by this past December, and I did that to the best of my ability, but now the book is kind of sitting and I wonder if there is another chapter to be written that is currently being fleshed out in my life.

There is a movie that’s on my list to watch just about every year before or around Christmas, “The Note”. Perhaps I connected with the protagonist’s being a writer before I realized I was one. Perhaps the cute, but cheap love story that’s woven into the plot makes my heart melt. The story has a redemptive element to it that you’ll just have to watch to figure out. But it’s her own personal struggle, the primary task she is tasked with during the movie is to increase her employer's readership, by being a writer that shows her heart; the same task, mind you, that God has given me for 2024.

Let me tell you, when you decide to pick up a pen, or in my case, a laptop and share who you are with the world, It’s scary. Around friends, coworkers, church family, I feel that I’m a fairly open book, and while many of you fit in 1 of those 3 categories, if not more, A ministry isn’t meant to just touch those around you, it’s meant to touch the lost souls of this world; people that would be total strangers to me.

When I endeavored in 2022 to start a blog, I did it with fear and trembling. No. I don’t mean reverence and respect for the God that has given me talent to write, I mean fear and trembling. I had felt the tug a year earlier, but I was conflicted on what I would say. God had to work some carnal thinking out of me before he gave me the green light to go in May of 2022.

So, back to the movie and the development that came out of me writing my memoir... And quite honestly the last 22 months of my life. My book is really talking about my past, upbringing, and the journey that brought me to a place where I have people and a loving church family surrounding me. The unexpected development was the healing of my heart in a way that I never foresaw coming... becoming open to a “forever friend” or partner/helpmate.

There is a situation I talk about in the book that happened to me when I was 19, that had a profound impact on how I viewed money, how I valued myself, and how I looked at the opposite gender. As I have been writing the book and working with a Christian author breakthrough coach, breaking off wrong beliefs about myself, that have obstructed my ability to write this book since God put it on my heart in 2009, I finally was able to except one of the core values that us as humans must face at some point in our lives... I am lovable.

For most of my life up until my mid-20s, not being married or having a girlfriend really wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t care and don’t care for the social status of needing a girlfriend to justify me, or tell someone, “I’m better than you because someone loves me”. But it wasn’t until I found my family 6 years ago, learned about friendship and it’s power, that I found myself this past September telling God, “I’m ready”. My “big sister”, as I call her, Shelly, had told me with her husband at her side a year earlier that, “with so many healthy examples of marriage surrounding you, maybe someday you’ll open yourself up to explore that kind of relationship”. I’ll be honest, I had a Mary moment... Mary, the mother of Jesus, took things people told her and hid them in her heart; that was me with Shelly’s comment. I never dreamed it would come true. But here I was on a Monday evening in September telling God, “I’m ready”. What I was telling Him was I was ready for the friendship part, the rest of it scares me to death; but I've read books, listened to podcasts, and talked to my married friends. God is working on me regardless of if I’ll ever be someone's husband or not; I feel that even if marriage is not in my future, preparing myself for it is not a waste. The bible tells us to count the cost; I think that too many rush into marriage without “counting the cost” beforehand.

I felt God’s calling to leadership a few years ago, and that’s been one of those things for me... It’s like someone handing you a puzzle piece and you're trying to figure out which hole it belongs in. I’ve had an unhealthy fear of being involved in leadership, and thus an unhealthy relationship with the word, "leader". It’s one of the things my author breakthrough coach and I have wrestled with. I have always associated leadership as something that someone does when they stand up in front of a large group of people and speak publicly, or worse, are a manager tasked with leading a group of people to gain a company's goal, while trying to meet yours and not lose your job in the process.

I, through the process of writing this book, have come to accept what is true for me, that’s not who I am; I’m an introvert. The book “Four Tables” by Ken Gurley, has become an impactful book for me, and in the book, he discusses that when we sit down at a table and share a meal with people and fellowship with them something extraordinary takes place... growth. When I spoke to my author breakthrough coach about this book, she helped me to look at leadership through the eyes of someone who sits down at a table, breaks bread, and fellowships; just like Jesus did in the upper room. This is where I thrive, I thrive on intimate personal connections and encouraging people; I’m not some big important leader making eternal decisions or a manager trying to cut shrink in his store by $100,000 or something like that... I’m just a friend sharing my heart.

What do healthy marriages do? It's just 2 friends sharing their hearts... How does a man lead his home? That is certainly a question I’m trying to get an answer to, but my guess is gently, lovingly, and encouragingly.

Until the next post... Be blessed and be encouraged.