To be an encourager.  What a delightful calling.  What a wonderful lot in life.

I knew an encourager once, that had a son that married a very young girl.  Then before long…a baby girl was born.  It was crazy and hard…and hard. The encourager didn’t let the circumstances keep him from his life’s work though.  He went to town and bought a bunch of dresses for the baby girl, his granddaughter.  He was a quiet man, but his acts of encouragement spoke volumes and still do, even though he is in Heaven now.

This encourager that I knew, continued to help his son’s family.  He would drop by with groceries…and sometimes those little, white, powdered sugar, donuts that they loved. To the little girl, he looked like a knight in shining armor.  He looked ten feet tall.

This same encourager was the type of man that would see a woman with several kids, and she might seem down on her luck, so he would slip them a bit of money.  You see, he grew up that way, with his momma and siblings.  He knew how it felt.

Would you believe that this man passed these traits onto his own son?  The son that started out so hard with his own little family, took on the very characteristics of the father.  The son became the type of man that made people believe that they could accomplish their dreams.  He would declare things in faith, that he believed others would become.  He also became the kind of man that would see others in need and share with them…because God had blessed him so very much. His heart grew so big….just like his father before him…that God used him in countless ways. I remember him telling stories of the ways that God had dealt with his heart to give to others…and tears would flow from his eyes, as he obeyed.

This is my heritage, Dirt Roaders.  That very thought is so humbling and almost to big for me to comprehend.  Life has not always been easy, but to share DNA with people that wanted to see others succeed makes me so grateful.  I want others to make it.  I want them to prosper.  I want their kids to prosper. I want to share what God blesses us with, by helping those in need.  Life is about so much more than what we can acquire ourselves.  There is so much more depth than that.  If I can just carry on that legacy and encourage those around me…I will feel that I am being used of God.

Pardon the powdered sugar on my fingertips,