That gives me hope

I wish to be an encourager and an equipper. 

I wish to help people find what they need to be what they are meant to be. 

Maybe I can offer encouragement or understanding. Solidarity. Respect.  

Possibly I can share helpful tools. Perhaps words of wisdom. 

Maybe I can bolster confidence that has faltered.

Hopefully I can challenge others to think more creatively. To reconsider priorities. 

Maybe I can point to a better perspective. 

Inspire to a more lofty goal. To possibilities previously unseen. 

Perhaps I can stretch the thinking of others along with my own. 

I hope to do these noble things with my words and my presence. In my daily contacts, but perhaps especially in my writing - not because my writing is more important than real life, but because I have so little social contact in real life.

And so I try. I write words - and publish them - and hope that at least some of them will help somebody. That they will encourage or challenge or equip or teach or strengthen.

But then I have to wonder

Are those words doing what I wish for them to do? 

Is anybody reading them? 

Are they helping anybody? 

Has someone been motivated or encouraged by my words? 

I may never know.

Such is the life of a writer. We lift our words to the window and let them fly off into the world and may never know where they will travel nor what they will achieve.

But…

Once in awhile, someone returns a few words back to me. 

Someone thanks me for sharing beauty with them.

The illustration helped someone.

That story changed their perspective.

Someone relates how my words gave them courage to take the next steps.

Someone tells me that they enjoy reading my words.

And that gives me hope.

...

Credit goes to my new friend and writing instructor Christine Niles for her challenge to write about something that gives me hope.