Our second daughter -- the one who thought sleep was a waste of time and wore short-sleeved shirts in the dead of winter -- never seemed to get sick. But because she had three sisters close in age who did, she spent a lot of time in the pediatrician's office with us. It appeared for a time that we had a permanent weekly appointment there for the three other girls, one sick or another. Kate would watch what Dr. Hoppers did and ask him questions. He would often let her go with him down the hall to deliver cultures to the lab.
When she was three, she announced to us that she wanted to be a doctor. When she was in fourth grade, that interest was fired up by her reading of Gifted Hands, the incredible story of Dr. Ben Carson who went from his life as a troubled urban youth to becoming a renowned neuro surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital. They have never personally met, but this man encouraged and influenced her life profoundly.
Yesterday Kate -- now a doctor herself -- scurried out the door for a 12 hour shift in the hospital emergency room. As I walked back into the living room, my eyes caught the title of a book on her table (see above). There it was, the little paperback that cast vision in her life so radically. From that time on, she pursued that passion through her schoolwork, internships and medical mission trips.
When I was a young teenager, a youth director caught me one day writing in my journal and asked if he could read what I was working on. A couple of days later, he returned my notebook. I was so afraid that he would make a patronizing remark like, "Good for you!!" as if I had finally learned how to draw inside the lines. Instead, he said, "I hope that you didn't mind that I copied down some of your poems." His words planted hope in my heart and the seeds to become a writer.
A couple of years ago, I met a young man at a conference in New York. He was a magician, quite a good one at that, his childhood hobby having developed into an incredible vocation. He loved his job. I asked him, "So how did you get started in this line of work?" He looked at me with enthusiasm in his eyes, "My grandmother gave me a magic set for my birthday when I was seven," he said. "I started by performing for my family, and I haven't looked back." God is using this creative individual in powerful ways. And I salute his grandmother for enlarging his world.
Encouragement reverberates in ways we cannot know, and even beyond our lifetimes. It is a gift that invests in the lives of all those around us. We all need a good word or two.
I told Kate about seeing the book and that I had written about it. She said, as a matter of fact, that just the other day in her clinic, she had told a young boy about the book to encourage him. She wrote down the title and author and said that the school librarian could help him find it.
Who has God placed on your path to encourage, challenge and cast vision?
The LORD GOD has given me
the tongue of those who are taught,
that I may know
how to sustain with a word
him that is weary.
Isaiah 50. 4
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