ENCOURAGEMENT

State Basketball Tournaments, Spring Break, lousy weather, NCAA basketball tournament, Laura battling the flu; all of these combined to make us homesick and a little depressed this week. We’re not talking about can’t-get-out-of-bed depressed; just a little down and feeling sorry for ourselves.

Then, as God seems to always do, he put three things together that just touched our hearts, lifted our spirits and sent us on the way we need to go.

I was out Saturday in downtown Cesis and one of our elderly soup kitchen (diners?, clients?, eaters?, attendees?) ladies stopped me on the sidewalk. Now, this is really strange because in Latvia, even though you know someone, that doesn’t mean you are going to be acknowledged. She speaks no English but with just my basic Latvian I understood that she was going to the hospital; would not see us at the soup kitchen on Monday and would we be sure to pray for her. It seems like a small thing, but so many times we are ignored or get a blank stare here, that it was a great breakthrough that she felt comfortable enough to talk to me on the street and ask me to pray.

The next encouragement came on Monday and it involved almost the same thing. A lady that we have not seen in over 8 months stopped us and initiated a conversation. Her daughter has stopped coming to our youth group (neither she nor her mother are members of our church). She wanted to know if we knew why because she really wanted her daughter involved with what was going on with the youth. We were able to walk with her over to where Laura meets with the women’s Bible study and invite her to the meetings. Her daughter just emailed Laura to tell her how happy her mother was that she met us and to thank us for the kindness we showed. We will tell the daughter that her mother was the encouragement that we needed.

Lastly, today at the soup kitchen, Laura and I were working together filling the soup containers. A guy that eats quite often was in line. I spoke to him and tried not to stare at his face. He had dark sunglasses on (I don’t even remember what the sun looks like!) and I could tell someone or something had done a very good job of re-arranging his face. It was not a pretty sight. When he gets up to us, he starts talking to Laura and is trying to hand her something. We stop what we are doing and we can see that he is trying to give her a picture. A picture of Jesus. A very old black and white picture of Jesus, which is actually a post card. Laura at first didn’t know if he was showing it to her or giving it to her. He made it plain he was giving it to her. Wow!

Now this guy hasn’t seen too many sober days recently. You just have to wonder, why?

Why did he have this picture of Jesus?

Where did he get it?

What did it mean to him?

He has no money, he has no home, he has no car, and he has no other possessions that I can see.

Yet he chose to give that picture to her. Talk about bringing a lump to your throat.

What was God trying to tell us? Was it just encouragement? Was it a small sign that maybe this guy is thinking a lot more about Jesus than we give him credit for?

I don’t know but I do understand that each of these three situations ended up with both parties being blessed. Five people brought together in unique circumstances. Each seeking encouragement; each receiving encouragement from the small acts of kindness of others. Just a word on the street, just a kind voice, just an old wrinkled picture of Jesus.

How about you? Who do you need to encourage today? How much encouragement would a phone call, an email or an old-fashioned letter bring to someone today?

You might be the picture of Jesus to someone today.