Affirmation

January 19, 2010

AFFIRMATION



It was one of the hardest times of my life.

My mother had died after a long bout with cancer - and in the middle of an all-night prayer meeting for her healing.

I was 17 and full of developmental raging and teen uncertainties.

I was having the hardest academic year ever at a special senior level in a huge downtown high school in the heart of french and catholic Montreal.

My sister was a newly wed with stars in her eyes and wonder at every turn.

The church and my lonely father were embattled.

Sundays were not celebrations and at times his agony could be heard in the dark of the nights that followed.

And my inner dialog was turning all this into self-doubt and statements negative and faithless.

Life was a crock.

Where was God?

This would never end.

Don't trust people......and don't trust even God.



And then my youth pastor sought me out bearing these words for me:

"David, life will not always be this bad.
This is really bad stuff right now....it is awful. I'm struggling too.
Do not take what is happening personally
...there is not much about any of this that you can affect.
Seasons of life like this have to be just walked through a day at a time.
And you will make it to the other side.
You are a good person and God will do things through you that will be very good.
I believe in you."

And that day I got a little more sane....and a lot more settled.
Strength started to appear - at least on the far horizons of my soul.

And we all walked through it - one day at a time.

My sister stayed very happy in her marriage.
My Dad recovered and remarried - and ministered till he was 77.

And I entered the ministry - in large part because I wanted to be like my youth pastor.

And all the while, I believe, my mother looked down upon us nodding her approval.


Affirmation has a power to revitalize the soul.

Some ideas to help us be effective in this:
1. speak the truth - not vague platitudes of kindness - but the truth as God has given it
2. be brief - the mind can only process so much - especially when it is already overworked.
3. be direct - get close, look unswervingly and kindly at the ones you affirm
4. speak hope in God - and there is always hope in God
5. say it simply - and repeat it - until you sense the person you are speaking to gets it
6. let your feelings show - put some of your soul next to your friend.

Affirm someone soon....it is the stuff of miracles.

David