Last week after going through a few challenging days, I said, “Father, I need your encouragement.” Sometimes when we’re needing something, we can forget the obvious, which is asking God directly to provide for us what we can’t seem to muster on our own. Our Father loves this childlike dependance on him.
A day or two after asking for encouragement, I was sitting at my back window looking out at a sky filled with dark grey clouds while also looking down to read from the Mirror Bible. When I got to Titus 3:4, I read “But then, oh happy day. It was the generosity of God and his fondness for humankind that dawned on us like a shaft of light. Our days of darkness were over. Light shone everywhere and we became aware: God rescued the human race.”
At that very instant, I looked up and that sky had opened up right in middle with a golden shaft of sunlight pouring through! When sharing this story last Saturday at our worship service, I failed to mention that after encountering this sudden burst of sunlight through the otherwise entirely grey-filled sky, I looked down to read another verse or two and looked up to see that the sunlight had completely vanished behind the thick curtain of grey once again. It had only been there for that one verse I was greatly encouraged by.
I didn’t think that just maybe God was doing that to encourage and bless me…I knew He was! By cultivating a life that expects blessings to follow me all the days of my life, I try not to miss Papa’s kisses of kindness and I make intentional decisions not to dismiss them either.
This is an example of one small story in my life that has the power to interact with someone else’s story at just the right time. If I were listening to another person’s struggle, I could first empathize and draw out more of their story and at a time that seems right, offer this part of my story as a way to bring encouragement and hope. This is how we get to keep bringing portions of the light we carry to a world full of people often steeped in anxiety and depression who desperately need a ray of sunshine.
You are that ray of sunshine:
“The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter until the full light of day.” (Proverbs 4:18)
As we take time to truly listen to someone else’s story, we don’t have to be quick to share our own, but we can take time to draw that person out with genuine interest in the questions we ask. And at just the right times, Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance a bit of your own story to share that will be a bright ray of sunshine.
It’s not our job to fix people nor to tell them what they have to believe. But just like Jesus did, we get to drop a seed of hope into the soil of the heart of the one we’re sharing life with and watch how God causes that seed to grow.
Your story is quite likely the most powerful and inspirational thing you have to share. Don’t believe the lie that it isn’t important or flashy enough or whatever other lies we may tell ourselves. Your story is actually the story of Jesus encountering you in a million different ways. Don’t miss or dismiss it.
Enjoy sharing a bit of yourself as you also allow another to share a bit of themselves with you. This is the beautiful transaction of life. | 
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