Today I was a little down. The weather is cold, the sky is gloomy and the sun is not coming out. Its easy to feel a little depressed by the day outside. It seems like a lot of things is going wrong lately, not only in my life but my family’s life. Things just aren’t going as expected. My son has been looking for a good stable job since he got out of the military, but nothing seems to be the right fit. He is going for interviews but nothing is panning out. As a parent when my kids are hurting, I hurt for them. I guess you can say this depression is caused by nothing major but just some emotional stress. People that we used to hang out with us are no longer visiting with us. My son’s wife is still trying to get a visa; she is in the Philippines. Then I look at myself; my weight loss goal is not going well. I seem to be staying the same weight even though I’ve tried to cut back on eating certain foods. My daughter is getting married soon and will be moving away.
As I had a pity party today, I received a text from someone asking me to call her. This girl has had some major problems in her life. She has every reason to be upset, be depressed, but instead of her crying about all the bad things in her life, she does something unexpected. She actually takes time to tell me thanks. She thanked me for being there for her, for listening, for encouraging her. She told me she loved me and I was like a sister to her. As she is telling me this over the phone, I had to hold back my tears. Here I was throwing a pity party for myself and here is this girl giving me encouragement when I should have been encouraging her.
Sometimes we focus on our own lives, we don’t look around at other people and try to help them. We don’t take time to encourage others and be a friend to others. We live in our own bubble asking, “Why Me Lord?” The thing is we should be saying, “Use Me Lord!” “Use me for your service, Lord. Use me to be an encouragement to others. Use me to help someone who may be hurting or depressed.” So I want to encourage you to think about helping someone else today. Be there for them, be a light. Be a friend.
That reminds that so many people are focused on their own goals and dreams, but almost nobody questions about the dreams of others and how can they be of service to them.