Friday Blessings...

Whee! I was happily surprised and mighty tickled this morning when an On-Hold Concepts client called me at work to ask if I would be willing to help her write copy for her business website! It kinda blew me away, actually, because she was so complimentary that her comments made me blush!

Yes, I'm still surprised -- probably always will be -- when people tell me they consider me an excellent writer. This must have something to do with nearly every one's inner concept of how well they "measure up" against the "competition" (even when one couldn't care less about competing!).

Some people hide their sense of inadequacy better than others -- all too often with off-putting false bravado -- but I have discovered that what most of us are trying to figure out is simply, "Am I 'good enough' just as I am -- or do I disappoint you as much as I disappoint myself at times?"

That's a special ruse of Satan's. "Make 'em feel less adequate and beloved than they are and they will shrink up and do less with the gifts God gave them."

Anyway, upon receiving this lovely request to help with web content, I emailed my boss (the owner of On-Hold Concepts) and asked if this type of thing was off-limits; if it would be viewed as any kind of conflict of interest if I "adopted" one of On-Hold's clients and helped her out. He quickly reassured me that I can write for any of On-Hold's clients as long as I refrain from writing on-hold phone messages for them "outside of our business agreement with them" or for any other company in competition with ours for the same type of products and services. That, of course, was a given as far as I was concerned.

So over the course of this weekend I will be applying myself to creating "additional verbiage designed to enhance the on-line experience of visitors" to this lady's website. They have offered to pay in cash or services. It has to be cash. (This kid needs to recover from three years of serious under-employment as quickly as she can!)

For some reason, this feels wonderful! Since De and his next door neighbor Don passed away (in 1999 and 2005), I haven't had my customary quota of expressed delight and amazement over my writing abilities... De and Don were easily my biggest "fans" in this regard. As Mark Twain once said, "I can live for a week on a compliment." Compliments also make me want to go out and do "more of same" (write great stuff) so I can get "my fix" of a compliment again!

I don't think any of us compliment others enough. I am going to start making a habit of it. If I enjoy it this much, it's no small stretch of the imagination to believe that other people would love to hear how great I think they are at what they do -- as grandparents, workers, bosses, moms, dads, friends, intercessors... the whole gamut of human activity that we are all involved with on an hour-to-hour basis.

Compliments and kudos are probably a significant part of every one's love language. We all enjoy a compliment -- if we can just stop blushing, and back-pedaling, and blocking them as much as we do! While "in the moment" they can be unutterably uncomfortable, ever after they are unutterably wonderful!

We need to remember that God doesn't make junk and that each of us is a treasure to someone else -- generally several or many more someone else's!