A Kind Word: Reflection on Encouragement

Proverbs 12:25

An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.

This world is crooked.  Sin has marred the beautiful creation God has made and while He is redeeming it, making it new, it is still full of thorns and brambles.  As humans we scar each other.  Even those of us who would generally be considered “nice” or “good people” act selfishly, lose our tempers…get grumpy.  The situations we are in weigh down our hearts and exhaust us, sometimes leading to depression and despair, and that doesn’t even take into account chemical imbalances that seek to sabotage our daily lives.  Life sometimes feels like one long work out that barely leaves time for the lactic acid to build up. 

How sweet, then, is a kind word?  Your entire day has been one huge mess.  Your boss asks you to do something that feels so out of your realm of talent and understanding that it leaves you with knotted stomach, aching brain, and clenched jaw; at least five people have yelled at you for whatever reason, most likely because they are frustrated with something or someone else and you just happened to be in the line of fire; someone cuts you off in traffic; you go home to an empty apartment with upstairs neighbors who seem to enjoy tap dancing and next door neighbors who have shouting matches around midnight. 

Then someone has a kind word for you.  It doesn’t suck away all the pain of the day; you’re still maybe a bit disgruntled, exhausted, but your view suddenly brightens, your spirits are uplifted, and things really don’t seem as impossible or gloomy as they did before.  Challenge today?  Offer a kind word, an encouragement, and remind someone they are not alone.