Words of Encouragement

The Bible is filled with words of encouragement for Christians as well as non Christians alike for wherever you are in life. It doesn't matter what you've done, where you've been or as I said wherever you are now, God's words of encouragement will lift your soul. Even if you are not a Christian when you read God's words of encouragement, the power in the word can melt the hardness of hearts.

In 1991, while recuperating in the hospital from one of many surgeries I had over the past several years, I had an unexpected life-changing experience that set me on the path I believe God ordained for me before the foundation of the earth. This experience didn't come via a lot of hoopla. It came, believe it or not, through words of encouragement via a verse of scripture. You see, one of my aunts had earlier given me a copy of the Daily Word but I hadn't looked at it. But, now at 3:00 a.m., I lay in bed thinking how miserable my life was. At the time, I was tired of living, but afraid to die. I was tired of living because my life was a mess from all the bad decisions I had made up to that point. I was afraid to die, because I knew enough to know that once you leave this earth, you are either going to heaven or to hell. Of course, I was headed straight to hell and I KNEW IT. But GOD, who is rich in mercy, who is not willing that any should perish but have everlasting life, spoke to me via that Daily Word.

As I said, it was 3:00 a.m. I lay there, restless, confused and hopeless. So, I picked up the Daily Word and began to read it. I can not tell you to this day what the devotion was about because before I could read it my eyes rested on the scripture verse for the day. I was not a bible reader because in the denomination that I grew up, the Bible was not read or recommended. So, at 40 years old, for the first time, I felt like Almighty God, the Creator of the universe spoke directly to me, giving me words of encouragement as I read "For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11 New International Version). That is, of course, my absolute favorite scripture in the bible.

There was so much life to those words that I immediately felt 100% better. I no longer felt hopeless and I was definitely comforted and encouraged. Thus, from that moment forward I began to tap into that marvelous plan God has for my life. Some time later, after I came to know God and know His voice, I heard him say that he had given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to them who are weary. (Isaiah 50:4) My mission in life is to tell others about the goodness of God and to let them know that God is not holding anything against them so that they can come into the kingdom of God; and to offer words of encouragement to them so they can become all that God has created them to be. I know from my own personal experience, "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher"
(Romans 10:14 KJV).