A Gift of Encouragement

I Thessalonians 5:11
"Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing."

There are so many people hurting in the world today. People on our streets. People at our work. People in our schools. People in our families. Strangers. Friends. Families falling apart. Marriages that are being broken. Families battling with cancer, death, money problems. Everywhere I turn I see people struggling with things in their lives. So what can we do to help? We can't mend broken homes. We can't heal cancer or raise the dead. We can't pay off people's mortgages ( at least most of us can't). But we can speak words of encouragement into people's lives. We can send random texts or facebook comments or cards in the mail. We can make quick phone calls. It doesn't take a lot of time or effort to be an encouragement.
People want to feel important, valued, thought of. There is nothing worse than feeling ignored, or taken for granted, or invisible.
A few weeks ago I was really stressed about some things going on in my life and when asked how I was doing by a friend, I told the truth. That I was stressed. Instead of answering with a general "fine", I told him that I was stressed to the max. A couple of days later, I got a text from several friends just saying they were praying for me. I also got a phone call from a friend who prayed with me over the phone. When I got off the phone, I broke down and cried. That phone call meant more to me than that friend will ever know. Sometimes we need someone to take the time to let us know they are thinking about us, that they love us, that they are there for us, that they are praying for us.
After that phone call, I began to make it a point to text, make phone calls, or send emails randomly to friends. Even if they hadn't said anything at all about struggling with anything in their life. Sometimes people just need some encouragement. If we could all take the time to encourage 1 person every day, what kind of difference could we make in the lives around us?