A Word of Encouragement

    When life is flowing smoothly, it is enough for me to have the Holy Spirit as a quiet presence in the background, somewhere between a default setting and a screen saver, but when trouble comes, I need more. I need God to be as solid as the things I can see and touch. So in the rapids we have gone through recently, I asked God for encouragement and He sent me a letter. It was actually written by a young man we considered one of our "spare sons", though he never lived in our home. Jason was in jail when he called us looking for another "spare" and we wound up talking and then writing one another. The only time we met in person was when he was in pre-release in Great Falls. We bought him a bike so he could get to work. I knew from the newspaper that Jason re-offended after getting back to Kalispell and went back to jail. I had not heard from him for years before his letter came from the state prison in Deer Lodge. Jason apologized for not getting in touch and assured me that what we had done for him made a difference in his life.
    His letter came at a time of discouragement, when I wondered if all the years of love and instruction we had poured into our son made any difference. We had barely brushed up against Jason's life and yet, years later, he still felt the impact of our love. He encouraged me not to stop trying to help others, regardless of the outcome. Sooner or later, good would come of it. I knew when the spares left me that I might not hear from any of them, even Lance, whom I lived like a son. When he left, God asked me if I could love them like He did, for years at a time, without getting anything in return. I told Him I could. I planted God's truth in each of them like a time bomb and trusted that God would explode it when it was needed. I had no regrets about helping my spares, but I feared for my son.
     I needed real words of encouragement from God and he sent them through Jason. And this time, when I needed encouragement, He restored my ability to write, my way to cope and be comforted. And I hope this post can be God's word of encouragement to someone else.