but the words my friend shared with me one day in a simple Facebook message became my life jacket… and the encouragement I needed to convince my mind and my heart to keep going.

Ever been there?

Life’s waves pounded you one too many times.

The oars to your little rowboat are gone and you are in the ocean, drifting aimlessly, unable to set your course.

You’ve baked under the heat of stress, sat through some merciless storms, and you’ve watched sharks circle. Each one wears a name… Fear. Failure. Sorrow. Pain.

You’ve radioed for help, you’ve prayed for rescue, you’ve done all you think you can do, but still you sit, in your boat, going nowhere, when you really wish you were somewhere, anywhere, but where you are now.

Dear sweet friend, if you are nodding to any of this, I hope you know you’re not alone. I’ve been there.

This past year, I’ve walked through some health challenges, personal heartaches, and professional disappointments. I’ve experienced moments of bravehearted courage but also concessions of defeat.

Sometimes, I wanted to quit.

Several weeks ago, I messaged my friend Kimberly on Facebook and as we discussed  life and careers, I shared just a sliver of the uncertainty I’ve faced.

There are a few things about Kimberly you should know. This woman is BRILLIANT. Ph.D smart. She’s worked on the administration side of Christian higher education for almost twenty years.

She’s BEAUTIFUL, inside and out. I’ve never seen her look anything but polished, and she is kind and fair and gracious to everyone.

She focuses on her BLESSINGS. She’s not perfect, she shares concerns we all do as wives and moms and women balancing so many things on our plates, but she doesn’t wallow in her worries. She always looks for the brighter side and as a result, she shines brighter too.

Kimberly and I aren’t what you’d consider close friends, though. We’re more acquaintances who have kept up with each other over the years. We both worked at the same university early on in our careers, and we were both pregnant at the same time, so I guess you could say we formed a bond over morning sickness and stretch marks and later, breast pumps and feeding schedules and trying to do it all. Those things stick with you.

I’m thankful we’ve stayed in touch, because what she said to me that day in a simple Facebook message changed my attitude at the time from hopeless to hopeful, because sprinkled in her text were words I’d become convinced were lies. She wasn’t giving me a pep talk, she was just pointing things out she’d noticed. Encouragement for Kimberly is something she does every day.

None of the things she wrote were statements I immediately agreed with. Every observation  in her message, I struggled to believe. When doubt and despair surround you, your perspective can shift quickly from taking in the  wide horizon of the ocean to only seeing the water in your boat that’s come in from the rain.

When doubt and despair surround you, your perspective can shift quickly from taking in the  wide horizon of the ocean to only seeing the water in your boat that’s come in from the rain.

However, as I read her words over and over, I realized her observations were based on when she knew me fifteen years ago, when she’d seen me at my best (and my most energetic). Like a survivor of a boat wreck, I hung onto her words, my lifejacket.  I read them, I even wrote them on my bathroom mirror so I could visually remind myself of what someone else believed that I didn’t.

Slowly, through her words, my lifejacket of encouragement transformed into my lifejacket of courage.

Because a friend willingly spoke light into my temporary moment of darkness, I found the will to stand up in that aimless floating boat – and I jumped.

With my lifejacket of one friend’s truth  pulled on  around me, I swam.

I kept swimming.

Slowly and tentatively, I reached out my arms, and I kicked out my legs, and it wasn’t long before I was far away from that listless rowboat of despair going nowhere. I ignored those sharks of fear and doubt, I resolved to forget the storms behind me and I looked for what was ahead – instead of waiting for something to come to me.

You might be wondering where God was in all of this. After all, our ultimate strength comes from Him, right? Not from others.

God was with me the whole time, I know that well. He’s the one who gave me the rowboat, who kept me from giving up completely and held me when I was tired and worn down. But He’s also the one who sent my friend and her words on a day when I needed those words the most.

Contrary to the title of this post, we know encouragement never really happens by accident, don’t we? Compliments are rarely shared by mistake, and encouragement happens when you’re intentional to give encouragement –  in the words you choose, the way you encourage, even what exactly  you’re encouraging someone about.

Encouragement is intentional, and we need to be more intentional about encouragement.

How are you encouraging others today? What are you doing to be an encouragement to someone else?

Tomorrow I’ll share 5 ways we can all be more encouraging to others.

Be encouraged, yourself, today.

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