Has a Lesson on Encouragement

This past weekend I had the pleasure of going to She Speaks. It's a conference for Christian women who have a ministry in speaking, writing, or leading. This was my second year. Last year, I was very uncomfortable there, not because of anything they did but because of my own history and training. You see, these women have a heart for ministry that is focused on Jesus Christ, and they are genuinely glad to be serving in that capacity. Therefore, 600 women were smiling at me, greeting me, talking to me, and it made me very uneasy. People who smile at me on the job usual mean they have pulled one over on me, and I haven't done my job, and here there were 600 women in bright lipstick smiling at me! Unsettling. This year my mom got to go with me. I followed the Women's Ministry Track for the most part but added some of the speaking track because it is one thing for me to get up and speak in my professional voice, but when I'm in front of women, leading women there is another voice I have to use. So, on Friday night I had to give a 3 minute testimony to a group of 12 other speaker track women and on Saturday night a 5 minute teaching speech. When I concluded my talk on Saturday night, if the women weren't crying they were at least tearing up, and the instructor said she felt it was anointed and asked me to send it to her, specifically the scripture. So, if that small group of women could glean something from this, maybe you can too.

In 2007, my mom was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer that really bordered on stage 4. Her oncologist said she was in the fight of her life for her life and that he would be giving her the strongest chemo on the market and the largest dose her body could handle. From that point, God took me out of a very active role in my mom's life into a passive role which I hated. I don't sit well. I'm a doer. I'm a fighter. I am not a sitter, but every time I got up to move He would effectively sit my behind back down. When I finally got the picture, I prayed, "Lord, if you aren't going to use me the least You could do is teach me something. I don't want this to go to waste." (Be careful what you pray for!) He began to teach me how to encourage. You see, I had never been around anyone who had cancer. I didn't know what to say or what was appropriate. Fortunately, it was my mom, so if I offended her, she was still going to love me.

Then one day when I had hit a wall and struggled to put one foot in front of the other, the Holy Spirit reached out and encouraged me by personalizing the Scripture in my heart.

We all have people who God sends into our lives, and we don't know how to encourage them. Someone may be going through cancer, miscarriage, financial problems, eating disorders, divorce, abuse, etc. and He wants you to minister to them. We are so blessed to have the Bible. It is the only book that is living and applicable to all situations. What the Holy Spirit taught me and spoke to me is what I want to share with you.

1. Memorize the Word of God. We are to bind the Word of God on our hearts. Some may have difficulty in memorizing, so get a small, spiral bound set of note cards. Put a verse on each card, and put the cards in your bag. You pull it out when you are waiting at the bank or in a fast food line, and you read it over and over meditating on it as you study it. Ladies, you've just had a sweet moment with Jesus in the middle of your day. I put verses that I use on a regular basis. I write down verses that might be for someone else, but I keep it because I know He will use it for others. I put my favorite verses there because sometimes I forget where they are located.
2. Meditate on the Word of God. Once we are memorizing the Word of God, we need to be meditating on the Word of God. While we are meditating, we need to be lifting that fellow believer up in prayer. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you in how to pray and what you are to pray for that person. Ladies, He is faithful. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to verses for the one who needs encouraging. This is why memorizing is so important. The Holy Spirit may give you a word like "courage." You are to pray for courage for that woman in need of encouragement. Then start digging in your concordance or on http://www.biblegateway.com/ for verses along this line. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you.
3. Make it personal. Then once the verses have been given to you, summarize the verses and insert the person's name being sure to put the location of the verse in parenthesis.

As I prayed about this time, the Holy Spirit led me to verses to read over you. (At this point, I asked the ladies to bow their heads and close their eyes.)

This is from your Heavenly Father:

Sweet daughter of mine, I love you. I love you so much, child, that I have engraved you on the palm of my hand (Is 49:16). I have hemmed you in and my hand is upon you (Ps 139:5). Do you feel me? The tears you have cried were so precious to me, and I've collected each one of them (Ps 56:8). I even have the hairs on your very head numbered (Mt 10:30). Sweet daughter, you are the apple of my eye, and I want to protect you (Ps 17:8). If you will just acknowledge me and who I am to you, I will lay out your way for you (Pro. 3:6). Trust me, child, I will never abandon you (Heb 13:5). Do you hear me? I'm telling you, precious one, it's me telling you to turn to the right or to the left or to walk this way (IS 30:21). Girl, I have plans for you.
I want to be your hope, and I am your future (Jer 29:11). Trust me, child, when I say that I haven't finished with you yet. I'm going to continue my work in you (Phil 1:6). And there isn't anything you will go through that I didn't know about. NOTHING SURPRISES ME, and I'm going to use every bit of it to your benefit and my glory because you love Me (Rms 8:28).

Ladies, I hope that encouraged you. I pray that hearing God's Word spoken to you making it personal encouraged you, and it's my prayer that you will be able to use this to encourage others.