Compassionate Encouragement

Finally, all of you be like-minded and sympathetic, love one another, and be compassionate and humble.
(1 Peter 3:8 CSB)

COMPASSIONATE ENCOURAGEMENT

Welcome back to a new year and a new beginning for Oasis of Hope. We often focus on love in February because of Valentine’s Day. However, did you know that this month also includes other special days? Some of these are World Read Aloud Day, Thank Your Mailman Day, National Send a Card to a Friend Day and Random Acts of Kindness Day. Focusing on love is a good thing, because love is the underlying motivation for many of these special days. Think of it as compassionate encouragement.

AUDIO

Most of our blog posts now include audio in order to make them more accessible. This goes along with World Read Aloud Day. Our Audio page includes links to audio blog posts. Count this as an invitation to listen, engage, and be enriched through one-on-one storytelling, anytime and in any place. You will hear the caring, compassionate, and friendly voices of Chronic Joy’s guest writers and of our own Voices of Chronic Joy® volunteers.

GRATITUDE, MAIL, AND KINDNESS

In these days of instant everything, it’s nice to send or receive a handwritten letter or card in the mail. In Mailboxes Filled with Kindness, Monica Snyder writes, “There are days a letter in my mailbox is the only contact I have with the world outside my home. I love this special kindness in a mailbox.” Thanking your mail carrier or other public service providers is another way to show compassionate encouragement. (Check out our Appreciation Flat Cards! Each set comes with 10 cards and 10 envelopes.)

Kindness and love go hand-in-hand as we seek to offer compassionate encouragement to others. In Loving-Kindness Can Change the World, Rev. Mark Roberts writes, “By treating people with kindness, we will help them—and the world—to experience the love of God and to be open to hearing the good news of God’s saving activity through Christ.”

Finally, in PASS IT ON → 24 CREATIVE WAYS TO SHARE THE REMARKABLE KINDNESS OF GOD, we list ways to share compassionate encouragement as we think about God’s kindness to us. We are wired for community, so God calls us to love one another deeply from the heart, to meet with Him in prayer for each other, and to ask the Spirit to inspire us to be intentionally kind.  We want to be a conduit of Jesus’ love to every life we touch as we journey Home.