AN ENCOURAGING WORD

This was my first blog.  I started it almost seven years ago with the hopes that sharing my experiences would brighten someone's day, or perhaps offer encouragement to someone who needed it.  I enjoyed making and following new friends.  Then along came Facebook, and I got so caught up in that, my blog posts became fewer and further apart. I increasingly found myself wondering why I was even keeping it alive, as a little voice in my head whispered, "What's so special about you that makes you feel you have something to offer?  What do you have to say that hasn't already been said by someone else, and said better?"

Today I decided to listen to that voice and delete this blog.  But first, a trip down memory lane.  As I scrolled down my list of posts I came across one I had written several years ago, entitled A REMINDER TO ME (AND YOU TOO IF YOU NEED IT).  I was curious to see what I had been reminding myself of, and opened it up.  Wow!  Talk about a Divine encounter.  

Apparently, I had been having some very similar thoughts back then, and the reminder was:  BEWARE OF FALLING INTO THE TRAP OF COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS.  

I won't copy the whole post, because you can read it by clicking on the link to it above, but the following story from the  Streams in the Desert devotional I had been reading at the time was an awesome reminder that I'm a Divine original (as are you) created for a special purpose that no one else can fulfill.

It's the story of a king who goes into his garden one morning and finds everything withered and dying.  He starts asking the plants what the problem is. The oak says it doesn't want to live any more because it's not tall and beautiful like the pine tree, the pine tree is upset because it can't bear grapes like the grapevine, the grapevine bemoans the fact that that it doesn't produce fruit as large as the peaches on the peach tree, the geranium is disheartened because it's not tall and fragrant like the lilac, and so on it goes throughout the garden until the king gets to the little violet and and comments on how happy he is to see at least one flower bright and perky.  To which the violet responds, "I know I'm small, yet I thought if you wanted an oak or a pine or a peach tree or even a lilac, you would have planted one.  Since I knew you wanted a violet, I'm determined to be the best little violet I can be."

I don't know if anyone else will read this post, or if I even have any followers left in Blogland who might be encouraged by it, but I do know it has convicted me to keep on keeping on, and that it's not time to throw the towel in yet.