Small Encouragement
Yesterday morning I was sitting in the recliner watching the rain and thinking about how little I wanted to go run (possibly because my stomach was still heavy with the Afghani kabobs we’d eaten on Sunday). Luckily for me, the twins were determined we were going to go run. Even in the rain. And there is nothing more motivating than a pair of twins giving you the stink eye for trying to bail on their marathon training plans.
I got up, and I ran.
I dropped them off after their mile and tacked on another 2.5 so I wouldn’t be out run by a couple of seven year olds (and also because I really needed to run off those kabobs, let’s be honest). The rain tapped my pony tail as I surged up and down the near vertical hills of our neighborhood, and I thought about how much I had needed the twins to motivate me.
Normally, it’s the other way around. It’s me trying to get them in gear to finish math, clean up their rooms, put their shoes away, clean bathrooms, eat their vegetables… And it’s easy to forget how much they have to teach me too: about getting out there on the days you don’t want to, about letting a far off dream be a fun motivator, and about encouraging someone else through the rain even as you’re dodging your own puddles.
As I ran, I found myself thinking about Aesop’s fable of the lion and the mouse:
The mouse gets caught by the lion, begs for its life, and promises to do the lion a good turn, if and when it gets the chance. The lion laughs hysterically but grants the wish, and days later ends up caught in a hunter’s net from which, surprise!, the mouse helps him escape. The moral of the story, as we all know, is not to discount someone because of their size.
We know this, but we forget to apply it in real life. Not that we discount short people (unless we need help reaching the top shelf), but maybe we assume that someone younger than us can’t have anything to teach us, or someone depressed couldn’t manage to encourage us, or someone struggling with sin couldn’t have wisdom to share.
But the truth is that we all have different gifts, unique strengths, which means we all have something to offer. And we all have some area where we need to receive. We can keep struggling along on our own—thrashing against the net that’s captured us or, in my case yesterday, trying to motivate ourselves on a rainy Monday when the gravitational pull seems to be working overtime—or we can acknowledge our need for help and accept the gift that someone else is offering.
Motivation. Wisdom. Laughter. Perspective.
A meal. Child-care. Moral support. Companionship.
Someone unexpected may have just the thing we are needing.
On the flip side, there may be an area where we feel inadequate to speak to someone else’s need. We feel we don’t have enough experience. We see only our own failures and lack. We worry that it will make us seem even smaller than we already feel. Let’s let that fear go and instead take a lesson from the mouse and give what we can when we can with confidence. It may be what someone else needs, even if we think it is less than nothing.
Can we be humble enough to accept help from an unexpected place? Can we be humble enough to give it from our own smallness?
Can we stop thinking about ourselves long enough to reach out our hands to accept or extend a small encouragement that may just save ourselves or another?
