Encouragement

People seem to think that encouragement is only when you are weak in your walk, in your faith, or in your life but that is a flawed view of encouragement and what the word really means. To encourage is to:to inspire with courage, spirit, or confidence: His coach encouraged him throughout the marathon race to keep on running. 2.to stimulate by assistance, approval, etc.: One of the chief duties of a teacher is to encourage students. 3.to promote, advance, or foster: Poverty often encourages crime. (dictonary.com) Thereby encouragement is not soley limited to those who have fallen on hard times, hard circumstances but encouragement is for all times no matter if you are up or down. Every now and then everybody needs to hear a simple you are doing the right things, stay on that track. We as people have conditioned encouragement to be something synonomus with struggle and that is just not so. Encouragement is just as much needed at the top of the mountain as it is when you are struggling to breathe in the valley. It simply means to assist, to advance, or to inspire. Needless to say about mountain climbing one peak is just another valley when you look at the grand scheme of things in life. Sure it might look like a person is at the height of achievement, but in reality they are stuck in another valley as it relates to the entire mountain range. So it is with life that we not only need encouragement when we fall, but when we succeed as well. We still need that push to drive us to keep on climbing that next mountain and that next mountain until we have conqured them all and it is time to retire. So encourage somebody today, tommorrow, next week, next month. You never really know how much it will help them to endure the next set of challenges they might have to face.