Words.

My mom and I discovered early on in my preteen years that my "love language" (I think she was doing a study on those at the time...) was words of encouragement and if you've ever been in a conversation with me you know that's totally true. I can't go two minutes with out telling someone how awesome they are or how much I love them. This also means that I'm a total sucker for encouragement; I literally thrive on it. Today I ran into Scott Hamilton today, he's our regional YL director, and got to chat about my club talk from last night. Hearing the encouraging things that someone has been doing this for so long feels so awesome! It's amazing the confidence that you find in yourself when someone praises you in some way.

I think that encouragement is a lost art now a days. We get so preoccupied with what's going wrong in our own lives and feel the need to share it with the world that we forget others are hurting just as bad as we are. I'm really into the Golden Rule right now (do onto others as you would have them do unto you) so I try to imagine how I would want someone to treat me in a situation and try and act like that when I'm on the opposite end. James 3:6 tells us that "The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell." In my opinion this is an EXTREMELY powerful and convicting verse. Our tongues, what we say, has the ability to shape the entire course of our lives. We can choose to speak slander and constantly cut people down with our words, OR we can choose encouragement. Personally, I just encouragement. Not only because I love being encouraged, but also because it's so rewarding to encourage and build others up. Another convicting verse from James is found in chapter one verse twenty-two "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." The bible commands us to "love our neighbor as ourselves" and "keep a tight leash on our tongues." 

Today's challenge: encourage! No matter how tough your skin is I know that deep down you love encouragement just as much as I do. So pass it on.

xoxo,

Abby just Abby

P.S. Happy Valentine's Day! Hope you have an awesome mom like mine that makes red velvet Valentine themed waffles like mine! <3