Encouragement

Today was my first day at a counseling conference. The keynote speaker today was amazing. He spent a lot of time talking about how important encouragement is. He also emphasized something that I'm passionate about and that is how much potential kids/teens have. I love seeing the good in kids and trying my best to encourage them to make good choices for themselves and their future. With several of the sessions today I was reminded of how much I love working with kids. I'm not sure what the future holds but no matter what job I'm doing professionally I really would like to get involved with reaching out to teens in some way (maybe mentoring). The title of this conference is "Facing the Giants" which is my absolute favorite movie partly because of the faith messages throughout it but also because of the impact adults had in the lives of the teens. I know that I would not be where I am today without my friend Marti coming along beside me and helping me get through my teenage years. I'm so thankful for her.


Encouragement is something I want to work on. I know that I respond better to encouragement rather than other forms of communication. At the end the keynote speaker told a touching story of how he took the advice of a 92 year old man and applied the golden rule to his relationship with his wife. The 92 year old man pointed out that if we all treated others the way we want to be treated then there would be a lot less divorce or other problems. This 92 year old man walked the talk. He spent 20 years taking care of his wife (by himself) who had Alzheimer's. It was just a really touching story...

I'm looking forward to the next 1.5 days of my conference!