Do you receive encouragement?

Sometimes I want to throw in the towel. Yeah, honestly. I am talking about writing books, blogs and articles. I am talking about the calling that is on my life. Do you ever feel that way?

At times I find it very difficult to concentrate, to find (or better: make) time to write, to ponder, to reflect. At times I am disappointed because a book I expected to be a success, did not sell so well. At times I wonder if anyone is encouraged and built up at all by my writings.

Oh well, I know all writers and bloggers deal with this from time to time. I've read it on your blogs, I've seen it in other authors and artists. I call it 'being overrun by waves of doubt and discouragement'.

But somehow, each time I feel like throwing in the towel, I receive encouragement from unexpected sources. Like the other day... I received an email from a gentleman all the way in the north of Sweden, who picked up my latest book Spirit of Truth,

"Gull-Brith, my wife, loves your book Spirit of Truth very much and so do I. We belong to a generation that did not learn English at school... She has gone through the book a couple of times and now she is working on the vocabulary."

Such emails make my day and I see them as encouragement from the Lord... go on, don't stop, I have your back. And at such moments I know it: I am blessed!

I am wondering, what kind of encouragement do you receive from time to time? Want to share your thoughts?

Does your family need prayer?

In previous blog posts I wrote about starting Prayer for the Nations in our town as well as prayer for our region. Well, there is more....

About two years ago, when my brother-in-law became very ill and passed away much too young, we started up a family prayer group. Now, this is not a new phenomenon as far as my in-laws are concerned; my mother-in-law and her siblings prayed for many, many years for their children and grand children. We decided our turn had finally come to take over (thank you Lord!).

We come together with the (younger) believers in our family to pray for each other, for the children and grandchildren, our nephews and nieces and for the older generation that went before us and prayed fervently that we would live a life for God! We are very thankful for the parents and grandparents that did not give up on us when we were walking away from God and his Word.

I would like to encourage you... if you have family members who need prayer (and who hasn't?), please start a group and come together regularly to pray, to thank, to bless. Two is enough to start! Prayer changes things, I am living proof!