Speak Life

Over the last month I've had several encounters that really encouraged me. These events coupled with a song that I love, Speak Life, made me wonder what would happen if we all chose to speak words of life. 

Over Mother's Day I wasn't home, I was in Mexico with Rob for a little getaway. The day that we came home we picked Maui up from school. I could see her in the car line holding flowers.  Now these weren't just flowers that she picked out of the school yard, they looked like they'd come from a flower shop. She was so excited to give them to me for Mother's Day and the look of excitement on her face as she gave them to me was priceless. But here's the thing that really got me about this: when I asked her where she got the flowers, she said the trash. Here's where my heart REALLY began to smile. My Maui girl she's got this heart that sees beauty in everything. She said "mama some of the teachers threw away the flowers that they got because they started to die, but they weren't all dead. So I found the pretty ones for you." I've never had someone choose  to dig through the garbage for me, but this little girl did because she wanted to give me something beautiful when I came back. The flowers sat in a vase on my counter until there was no life left in them, but through them, she spoke life. 

A couple of weeks later I had taken the three younger girls grocery shopping with me. They had been excellent. As I as was bagging the groceries, Brylynn reminded me that we'd forgotten to get Goldfish. I told her we'd have to get them next time and I reminded her that I had a snack for them in the car when we were finished.  A lady had overheard our exchange and came over and asked if my girls could have Goldfish. I told her that they were fine and she didn't need to do that. She again asked if it was ok. I agreed. She told my girls how good they'd been and she knew how hard it was to be patient and good while waiting for mommy to finish. Each of my girls looked like they were on cloud nine because this nice stranger acknowledged the good in them. She spoke life not only to my girls, but to me through her kindness.

My Brylynn had a doctor's appointment a week or so later. Afterwards she and I stopped at Popeye's for a late lunch. As I was cleaning up our table a very polite young man told me I had a beautiful smile as he smiled back at me. Hearing that, I thanked him and found myself smiling more. It was a genuine unexpected compliment that had a lasting effect. Have you ever noticed that smiling is contagious?  He spoke words of life not only to me that day, but to others because his words had a chain reaction.

Speaking life isn't something that we do easily.  I'm not sure why we've made it difficult. Finding the good in one another and searching for the silver lining in all situations shouldn't be as low on the list as we've let it become.  Our words and actions have the power to lift each other up.  We have the ability to speak life into each other.  How much better would this world be if even once a day we chose to be the voice that spoke life?