When God Skips Rocks

 

Have you ever skipped rocks?  It is interesting how it ripples out far and wide.  It starts close and then widens.  It’s fun to watch it grow. Did you know God likes to skip rocks too? Let me explain. I started this thing with my father when I left for college.  Every time I came home for a visit I would hide notes all over the house for him. I always dated each note. This became my thing that I did with him. I still do it to this day. I would hide them in his bible, his office, and his books. My father would call me every time he found one of my notes. It would sometimes be years later when he discovered the notes. It was fun to date them and see how long it took him to find them. Some notes were discovered 10 years later.  He always said he would find them at the exact moment when he needed encouragement the most.
One particular time I wrote a note and stuck it in one of his books. Years went by and he didn’t find it. He ended up loaning the book to a man who was in his office one day. The man called him up crying weeks later. He was reading my father’s book when he stumbled upon the note I had left him. The man broke the moment he read it. Unbeknownst to both my father and me he had a broken relationship with his daughter. He said the note inspired him to reach out one more time to his daughter who hadn’t been speaking to him. The father and daughter begin to talk. It started the healing process. The man shared this story with my father, who shared this story with me. This particular experience made a huge impact on me. I learned the ripple effect of kindness. My words not only blessed my father, but complete strangers too.  God took my words and skipped rocks with them.

My father once wrote me a letter that stated, you will hear your words of encouragement again someday when you stand before your creator. I have thought about my father’s words many times since. My father’s words resonate in my spirit every time I encourage someone.  On another occasion my father and I were engaged in a deep conversation about words, when he said something I’ll never forget.   He said, “Can you imagine staring at a coffin at someone’s funeral and being forced to hear all of a person’s bitter, angry, negative words they spoke about that person in the casket?”  His words have rung in my ears many times when I was tempted to tell someone off. Can you imagine what that would feel like to hear your negative words repeated out loud in front of you? Can you imagine hearing your own words of encouragement spoken out loud in front of you?  The prophet Isaiah said, we will eat the fruit of our words. If you sow kindness, you will reap seeds of kindness.  If you sow disrespect, you will reap seeds of disrespect. My point is that words are powerful. You can use your words to bless and not curse people. Words have incredible power and energy. Your words can bless multiple generations or curse multiple generations.  Your words have power to heal, encourage, inspire, empower, bless, and move things along in the right direction. A compliment can breathe new life into someone’s spirit.
I want to encourage you to find someone to show kindness to. When you show kindness to someone it reaches their spouse, kids, friends, and parents. God uses your words to skip rocks. Every time someone blesses my parents, it blesses my soul. It makes me so happy when I see someone being kind to my husband. It blesses me. Every time someone blesses my children it does something inside my soul. Encourage someone today. Bless someone with a gift. Write someone an encouraging letter. Pay it forward to someone you don’t know. Do something for a military or cop family. Do something to bless your pastor or teacher. So let God skip some rocks today through your words!!