The Power of Encouraging Words

Earlier this month, a disabled friend whom I try to mentor fell while trying to get out of his wheelchair. He hurt his back pretty bad and was down with pain for a few days. During that time he became depressed about his disability and physical limitations.

Since I understand how difficult it is to live with limitations, I reached out to him and tried to encourage him. After living with a disability for almost 30 years I know how difficult life can get. I know how it feels to make progress and then have a setback in the recovery process and the repercussions that come with it:

• Depression
• Pain
• Embarrassment
• Shame

I shared with him the story about how I fell off the toilet in my hospital room recovering from my accident and brain surgery. I confessed my own desire to end my life nearly 30 years ago.

During that season I needed encouragement from my friends, therapists and doctors to keep me from becoming overly discouraged. I also needed to go to a rehabilitation hospital to get more help. While there, my roommate suffered his own embarrassing bathroom incident.

Although he was older than me, I quickly became an encourager for him during my month-long stay in the facility. It is through our struggles and pain that we really learn the importance and value of encouraging words.

What Is Encouragement

We all need an encouraging word at some point in life, because life is hard regardless of our health or financial circumstances. Everyone is hurting in some way.

Encourage is defined as, “Giving hope or promise.” I am not a fluff and stuff type of person, and I prefer things that challenge me and help me grow. But, I do know there are times in life when encouragement is absolutely vital to continuing on or helping us get back on track.

These days, times are hard for most people around this decaying world and people are struggling with everything from health to attaining basic necessities for life. I don’t think I know anyone who couldn’t use a little bit of encouragement.

We all have the opportunity to spread some encouragement well beyond our circles of influence. Recently, I heard from a fellow disabled writer who lives on the other side of the country from me. He shared how much my writing this column encourages him and helps him on his own writing journey.

While our disabilities are different, we both have similar goals and similar struggles that we must overcome on our journeys.

Regardless of your health or wealth status, at some point you may need an encouraging word to help motivate you to press on also. After seeking traditional publication for my books for over a decade, I wanted to give up earlier this year, until I received the email from the other disabled writer who is also struggling on his journey to publication.

I realized the writing life isn’t just about getting published all the time, but making an impact through my words and hopefully spreading a little bit of encouragement along the way.

The Writing Life

Most of us have experience setbacks, rejection, and heartache on our writing journeys at some point. Even published authors face discouraging seasons on their writing journeys. The publishing world is constantly changing and trends are not set in stone.

Our audience also changes over time, so what sold before may not be as successful one, five, or 10 years later. That is why is it important to have writing mentors and cheerleaders to come alongside of us on our writing journeys who can give us a a encouraging words when we need them the most. Below are just a few of the benefits of having these important champions in our lives:

1. Deadlines
2. Feedback
3. Challenge
4. Encouragement
5. Inspiration

This year writing has been a struggle for me personally. I have struggled to stay focused in my writing. I have lost my motivation to write. My writing routine is out of why due to a change in my sleeping pattern.

Since I am a perfectionist, I am my own worst critic and get discouraged when my writing is subpar. My internal editor is stuck in overdrive. The lack of perfection is only discouraging me more.

Perfection Isn’t the Goal

Perfection is a stander a lot of us writers give ourselves, but struggle to achieve. We’ve been taught that professional writers are polished writers. But we’ve all heard the stories are experienced the feeling of finding a typo or grammatical error after we hit the send button.

I am guilty as charged, just ask the editor of this website. Writers often give themselves unrealistic goals. Or we place them on others.  Living with a the disability can give disabled person blind spots and we do more harm than good:

• Stress
• Burnout
• Physical harm
• Emotional and mental problems

Earlier this month I hit a wall in my life and ended up reaching out to a childhood pastor who baptized me when I was young, whom I haven’t seen since he and his wife came to visit me in the hospital nearly 30 years ago after my accident.

He now works as a Christian counselor and reminded me how far God has brought me since my accident. He shared how he has been encouraged by my work in the disability community and how my writing has become a ministry to encourage others.

He also reminded me that none of us are perfect until we complete our time in this life. Thus, I have decided to focus less on being imperfect in my writing and more on completing it as encouraging words.

Martin Johnson survived a severe car accident with a (T.B.I.) Traumatic brain injury which left him legally blind and partially paralyzed on the left side. He is an award-winning Christian screenwriter who has recently finished his first Christian nonfiction book. Martin has spent the last nine years volunteering as an ambassador and promoter for Promise Keepers ministries. While speaking to local men’s ministries he shares his testimony. He explains The Jesus Paradigm and how following Jesus changes what matters most in our lives. Martin lives in a Georgia and connects with readers at MartinThomasJohnson.com  and on Twitter at mtjohnson51.