The Importance of Expressing Gratitude and Encouragement

I keep this encouraging card on my desk at work. It means the world to me. I crack it open and give it a read whenever I need a little encouragement.

I have a book that Megan had made for my birthday or our anniversary one year. It was a clip art book that had the things she loved about me on it. It’s by far the best gift I’ve ever received in my life.

I have a ton of screenshots on my phone of Facebook comments and text messages when someone said something positive about me.

My study Bible is stuffed with dozens of past encouragement notes from Super Summer Ohio from both past students and fellow adult volunteers. I often read through these when I face discouraging moments in my life.

If you can’t guess it already, my main love language is words of encouragement (physical touch - yay hugs - and quality time battle it out for second place).

I rely a little too much on what other people say and think about me, but I’m working on that.

But, I’ve been thinking about something a lot lately as we approach Thanksgiving.

A few years ago, I preached a funeral. As usual, people went on and on about how wonderful the person was. It left me thinking: “this is great, but why do we wait until someone is dead to say nice things about them?”

Maybe not everyone is a “words of affirmation” person like I am, but we all could use a little encouragement now and then…especially in the poop storm that has been 2020.

Every November, we are challenged to remember what we are grateful for. I usually come up with a pretty generic list:

• Family
• Friends
• Health
• Etc

And I may get a little more specific:

• Wife
• Isaac
• Roof over my head
• Etc

But, I have realized I don’t do very well with actually telling the people I’m grateful for that I’m grateful for them.

Or, if I tell them, it’s a general “thanks” or “I appreciate you.” I rarely actually tell people why I think so highly of them.

I’m scared they will think I’m weird or creepy. Or, think that I have some sort of agenda.

Just today, I was talking to someone and wanted to share something. I chickened out. Not because what I was going to say was mean. It was because I was scared to be nice. How weird is that?!

We’ve all heard “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all.”

But, maybe we need to move past that to:

“If you CAN say something kind, SAY IT RIGHT NOW!”

So, that’s my challenge for myself and maybe for you if you’d like to join me this Thanksgiving season.

Let’s start looking not just for what we are grateful for but WHO we are grateful for and WHY we are grateful for them.

Then, let’s actually tell them!

After all, everyone could use a little encouragement now and then.