Encouraging Words in Times of Turmoil

Hello friends,

Sometimes I simply can't find encouraging words.  Sometimes I wish someone would speak encouraging words to me.  There are so few things to celebrate.  We live in a world of conflict, many which go back hundreds of years into the distant past.  This is very difficult for people in my country to understand, since our Nation goes back only a little over 200 years.  I have difficulty maintaining a grudge for more than twenty minutes, and hatred is just not worth the effort.

I have many other things to concern myself about.  In October of 2010, my husband had a heart attack, yet God brought him through, even stronger than before.  In that same month, one of our daughters had emergency spinal surgery, from which she is recovering quite well.  On June 6, 2011, on the same day that our other daughter was having emergency surgery, I was admitted into the hospital in a semi-coma.  All of us survived, and though we all still have medical problems, God brought us through each crisis.  In fact, I find it very difficult to be anything except grateful, ecstatic even!  GOD BROUGHT US THROUGH!!!  THANK YOU GOD!!!

I know what it feels like to have an empty stomach for days at a time.  Yet God fed my hunger of both body and soul.  I know what it feels like to wear shabby clothes.  I remember sifting through the ragbag.  It hurts to be hungry.  It hurts to be poor.  It hurts to be called lazy when you can't find a job. It hurts to be powerless within a world without mercy.  All these things, and more, beat down the human spirit and numb the soul, but in all of these things, we must believe that God will bring us through.

With all the things that I have surrendered in life, this is the one thing that I will not surrender. Mercy.  A cup of water.  A loaf of bread.  A kind word.  A smile.  Encouragement.  I will not surrender mercy to a merciless world!

I have no wisdom, my friends.  I don't know all the answers.  I only know one answer, the only answer that has ever worked for me.  I cling to the Cross of Jesus.  I tell Him my needs, and then I do all in my power to be obedient to His words, to His example, to be true to Him.  I fail.  All the time.  But I don't stop trying to be like Him.  I'm unworthy, but I know that He is worthy, so, for Him, I keep trying, and one day, I know that I will spend an eternity in heaven, with Him.  In Him do I place my hope.

With love,

Jaye Lewis

www.entertainingangels.org

Encouraging Words of A Mother's Love by Jaye Lewis

A Heart So Loved  by Jaye Lewis

It was our second winter on the farm.  I was a nineteen year old college drop-out, and the only one bringing home a paycheck.  Even in 1965 fifty dollars a week did not stretch very far.  Between my father’s unemployment and my meager salary, we could barely make our mortgage payments, utilities, and car payment.  We struggled valiantly, and to tell you the truth, it was just plain hard.

Thankfully, someone had given us some egg-laying chickens the summer before, and we were able to scrape by with a poorly planned stockpile of home canned and frozen vegetables and eggs.  We had plenty of eggs.  We had eggs for breakfast.  I took eggs for lunch.  And, of course, there were eggs for supper.  Winter in Michigan begins early, and by mid-February, I was certain I would never see the ground again.  I hoped to never see another egg.

I dreaded that first step into the house every evening after work.  I dreaded the smell of fried eggs, and I was pretty certain that I would live in bondage, forever, merely existing from paycheck to paycheck.  Surely I’d never see a penny to call my own.  I could not see the bottom of our poverty, and I could not stand another day of that cold and endless winter.

One evening, at what I perceived was the bottom of my life, I wearily dragged myself from the car, through the snow, and up to the front door of our house.  God, would this depression I felt never end?  Reluctantly, I opened the front door, and a sudden appetizing smell assaulted my nostrils.  What was that delicious odor?  Had I died and gone to heaven?  Had we killed the fatted calf?  Did we even have a fatted calf?

Suddenly, my mother swung into the living room, a brilliant smile lighting up her features.  Waltzing up to me, she slipped a clean dish towel around my neck, and she led me to an easy chair, right by the fire.  She pulled over the old piano stool, for an impromptu table, and she motioned me to sit down.

“I’ll just bring you your eggs.”  Gulp!  Eggs!  Not again!  Mysteriously my mother hurried to the kitchen, insisting that I close my eyes.  With eyes tightly shut I tried to imagine just what was going on with this strange and wonderful woman who was my mother.  My mouth watered at the tantalizing smells that assaulted my senses.

“Okay.  Open! “My mother commanded, merrily.  I opened my eyes as my mother placed a giant cheddar cheese soufflé on the makeshift table before me.  It was beautiful!  Perfect!  Heavenly!  Happiness and peace flooded through me, as I realized that my mother did this great thing just for me.  Just to make me feel appreciated and loved.

We both dove into that luscious cheese soufflé, smiling and sharing moments that shone far greater than wealth or substance.  One small kindness.  A moving picture that said more than a thousand words.

“I thought that you might be tired of eggs,” my mother grinned, acknowledging my struggle and despair in a way that transcended any ordinary spoken platitudes.

I don’t remember when my father finally found a job or when we ate meat again.  After all, it’s been more than forty years since that day.  However, I can honestly say that I’ve never tasted any dish that has eclipsed the flavor of my mother’s thoughtful kindness.  Bathed in the warmth of her surprise, I doubt that my stomach has since felt so satisfied nor my heart so loved.

© Jaye Lewis, 2006

Please feel free to share this story with your friends on Facebook or Twitter or any other social network.  Please always include Jaye's copyright and other personal information.

Thank you, friends.

With love,

Jaye Lewis

www.entertainingangels.org