Encouragement. We all need it. The problem is that most often we don’t realize what we need.
I watched a segment on TV Sunday morning. It started with two men walking across the Golden Gate Bridge in California. Turns out, one of the men committed suicide by jumping over the side of the bridge at the young age of nineteen. He said he had been diagnosed as bi-polar at the age of seventeen. He said he didn’t like being a burden to his family, and he knew they would all be better off if he ended his own life.
He continued, if only one person would tell him he was important, that would affirm, him and maybe he would understand his life had value. He said he met one woman on the bridge, and she asked him to take a photo of her on the bridge.
After he walked away from her, he said he knew what he had to do, and promptly jumped over the side to his certain death. After all, more than sixteen hundred people had already successfully committed suicide jumping from this spot.
Only, he didn’t die. A nearly 750 feet free fall to the water should have been enough to do it. But no, he suffered injuries, including a broken back, but he didn’t die.
In 2017 there were nearly fifty thousand suicides in the United States. Why?
Two most popular entertainers lived successful but apparently, empty lives.
Elvis Presley. Official cause of death, heart attack at the age of forty-two on August 17, 1977. Technically he didn’t commit suicide, but it is obvious that he was deeply depressed most of the time. He needed encouragement to help him overcome his state of mind. He didn’t get enough of it.
Hank Williams died in the back seat of his car at the young age of twenty-nine on New Year’s Day of 1953. Apparently, he never accepted himself, and led a self-destructive lifestyle that eventually took his life.
After this dreadful beginning, what good can come from this article? We shall see.
What can I do to bring some good to this world? Encourage, encourage, encourage.
Encourage who? Encourage others, encourage you, and encourage me.
There are days I ask myself, “What do you have to say that will be of value to others?”
Many times, I respond to myself, “Nothing. Nothing I say is worth much to others.”
Even after writing a book, “Warm Smiles and Encouraging Words,” I am often attacked with thoughts, “You only wrote that for your own ego. It’s all about you. It’s not for others, as you claim. It’s only for you.”
I will admit, I like it when readers respond with complimentary comments about my words. However, it does not take much for me to start my own pity party and to begin to feel sorry for myself. How much would it take for me to feel as worthless as the young man who jumped over the side of the Golden Gate Bridge? I don’t know; however, my feelings are the reason, I want to do something about depression in others.
Encourage, encourage, encourage.
Encourage others. Encourage you, Encourage me.
Encourage others to build their self-worth. Encourage you to believe in yourself. Encourage me to listen less to the destroyer and to listen more to the one who created me, who loves me more than any other.
I plan to build a ministry of encouragement to help others work through their own self-doubts and to believe how valuable they are to the world around them.
I intend to:
- Start a line of cards with encouraging messages and mail them first, to people I want to encourage, and then, I may develop them into some for me to provide to other encouragers.
- Become more aware of people who need encouragement, people who are down, people who are not sure they are loved, and then love them.
- Encourage, myself
- To be a leader who helps others find their better selves
- Remind myself, it is not about me. It is about encouraging othersThank You, Father, for encouraging me through the wonderful people you have brought into and through my life. You are so good to me.
- I have so many thoughts on this subject, and I intend to make it my 2020 goal to discover many ways I can encourage others.
Wayne Brady Smiles 