Encouragement

I heard a very good quote from Bro. Bo Sanchez today - "Encouragement is like anesthesia, it wears off. You need to give it again and again, and again, and again..."

I am not a person to give out a lot of encouragement. I generally believe that once you say it, it is their job to remember whatever encouragement I give them. I never really thought that words will not stick that much. I guess I expect people to be tough. Well, we're not. Looking at myself, yes, encouragement does wane. Why? I automatically forget encouragement once I feel fear. Fear to do the things I need to do, what God wants me to do. Fear is normal for all of us. That is why we encourage our loved ones, our kids, our friends. We aim to ease their fear. We have lots of fears, we fear different things, but all these fears are just false expectations! We fear failure because we fear we will be rejected. We fear rejection because we fear we will lose our self worth. But we keep on forgetting that God loves us so much that we will never be worthless. We are His children and His is a perfect love. Perfect love casts out all fears. Encouraging our loved ones is sharing God's love with them. I need to do a lot more encouraging...

As my husband always asks me - what is courage? I can now answer... Not the Princess Diaries answer but this - Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is being able to look at fear in the eye, and say "I'll do it anyway." By God's grace, I'll do it anyway.