Amazing what I find scribbled on scrap paper abandoned on my desk.

A few weeks ago, I got cornered by a couple of phrases we use a lot:

• Walking along side

• Pour into….

What does that mean? What do we pour? Whole pages were filled with potential answers. I must have written another list after talking to someone or reading something. Maybe I was musing about myself? At a random moment, anyone you are talking to will be feeling or thinking or experiencing one or more of the following:

Hopelessness

Helplessness

Emptiness

A couple of items on the scrap of paper fit with one of those big three. Maybe a person isn’t at the point of feeling and acting helpless, but they are overwhelmed. I don’t know where to put the word distracted. That is not a feeling as much as it is a state of being.

We once had a dog who would never run away, but she could sniff her way lost. She was easily distracted by a sound or a smell and after a few minutes discover that she didn’t know where she was.

After serious thinking, I concluded that we can pour into people that which is eternal. These will last forever: Faith, Hope, Love. (1 Corinthians 13:13.) I wasn’t satisfied.

There was another list which sounded like our Core ministry actions—expressions of faith, hope and love. Written in the largest letters is the word:

ENCOURAGEMENT

On this Memorial Day weekend, I’m going to be celebrating friends and friends of friends who did not come home from some war. I’m also going to celebrate and thank God for those who walked beside me and when they left me at their turn-off, I felt encouraged because they had bothered. Encouragement is such a great result of effort and caring.

That is the highest expression of our brand. When people think of us, I want them to think—he/she encouraged me.

Enrich

Edify

Educate

Energize

Empower

Equip

Embrace

Pour that into the hopeless, helpless and/or empty and they will celebrate you every time your name comes to mind. It is how lives are changed and destiny is forged. I’m wondering if that is the job descriptions of coaches and mentors and people you love to be with. “Hey! Come walk with me.”

Make it a Memory-Making Weekend

    D. Dean Benton

    Benton Quest House—Living the I’m Possible Dream

    Author of Mockingbirds at Dawn

    See and sample– https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/439557