Encouragement

I started pulling together this recent issue of the TwinkleGram back in February. I love writing TwinkleGrams, and yet, they are a task. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. When I don't get one done in a timely fashion, the "fun thing" weighs on me.

But life happened. FINDING OUR WAY HOME released. There were guest blog posts to write, radio interviews to blab, book stores to get to (still are). All the while, I just about melted down my Google Calendar by grabbing the TwinkleGram task and drop-and-dragging it forward (boy, that describes the emotional weight!) another day or two. Another day or two. Another day or two.

But finally--FINALLY--I finished the TwinkleGram, complete with survey and all. This after changing the original topic of Today's Message to The Joy in Second Chances because Hard Things came down in my extended family, and I write as a way to process. To file. To circle my wagons around hope.

Often, after finishing such a time-consuming task, I ask myself, Why do you bother, Charlene? Who really cares anyway. Nonetheless, two main goals were accomplished: 1) Writing Today's Message (the heart of the TwinkleGram, complete with a survey to help readers process the gist of the message in their own lives) and sharing news about the new book.

Then, like the small green shoots pushing Spring's compact crusty earth aside, something wonderful sprouted in my email INBOX. I received cheery notes from TwinkleGrammers who appreciated the message, spoke of its timeliness in their lives.

And there it was, today's word: Encouragement. This is why you "bother", Charlene, because encouragement is a circle. You pass it on, and somehow it returns twofold, energized to spin forth again.


I don't mean to suggest we encourage so that we can be encouraged, for where would the genuine giving be in that? But offering encouragement seems to spawn a magical cycle of begetting. More encouragement begets more encouragement. Pay it forward. Pass on the feel-good. Who else needs a lift?

When you encourage someone, next thing you know, YOU have more energy and your burdens seem lighter. Neat-o.


It's always fun for me to check the survey results, see how people are processing. So many of the TwinkleGrammers post fun pithy answers that make me laugh out loud--yet more surprise payback for my investment. But this more serious message inspired people to think on their past, how they process it. How often do we look back, consider where we've come from, what we've survived? Some of their answers tugged at my heart.


Fueled by the encouragement of thank-you emails (thanking me for my encouragement in the TwinkleGram) I felt especially "right" about personally encouraging two survey respondents whose hearts seemed heavy. Although I've never sent e-cards to people I don't know, today I did.

Encouragement. Think it. Live it. Give it. Pass it on. Catch it when it returns. Fling it out again. 

Who doesn't need a good dose of ENCOURAGEMENT.

Seeking Perspective

My eldest grandgirlie is Star of the Week in her first-grade class. It's quite the honor which offers her, as well as any student whose turn it is, the opportunity for lots of cool things, like bringing special show and tell. She invited me to come read a book to her classmates, a humbling honor, which I gladly and gratefully accepted.

I asked her to pick out the book, but she already had one in mind. It's a book I keep at my house, a book purchased at Paperbacks and Pieces, my favorite used book store of all times. Barely a visit goes by when the girls don't ask me to read The Piggy in the Puddle.

The class loved hearing it as much as I love--every single time I read it--the way the illiterative language (nice, eh?) rolls off my tongue.

But before I was up on the docket, and while the teacher gently and with great patience and humor put the kids through their morning routine, I walked around the room and absorbed the creative energies.

Profound Perspective 

How profound are those words?! I got out my camera and snapped a photo. What if every single day we asked ourselves to define those three short lines using a single word.

• Yesterday was ... busy. That's one way to put it.
• Today is ... grace filled. I'm here with my grandgirlie!
• Tomorrow will be ... Hm...Pleasurable. 

It is good, I thought, to find kindness and perspective, to filter our mental filing, and set a tone for the future of positivism. To be honest, it was a deeply profound interior moment for me.

It wasn't until later I noticed the days of the week beneath the lines. I only noticed them then because the teacher asked one of the children to come correctly place the days of the week next to the lines.

Perspective: through a teacher's creative spark, a child's learning curve, and an aging woman's goals.

Perspective.