Lately I’ve been learning something about people that I didn’t expect.
It’s not a lesson I went looking for. In fact, if I’m being honest, it’s one I would have gladly skipped.
For years, I struggled with technology. Anyone who knew me well knew that. Progress often felt slow and frustrating, and many of the things I wanted to create seemed to remain just out of reach.
Then, little by little, things began to change.
I learned new skills. The blog became more polished. Emails started reaching the right people. A podcast was launched. Systems that once felt impossible slowly began working together.
Most of that growth happened quietly, behind the scenes.
And with that growth came something unexpected.
Visibility.
For the first time, I could see some of what happened after I hit “publish.”
Who opened the email.
Who clicked the link.
Who returned week after week.
What surprised me wasn’t the technology.
It was the people.
Some people I assumed had forgotten all about me were still reading.
Some people I haven’t spoken to in years reached out with encouragement.
A few people I never expected to hear from again offered kind words that meant more than they probably realize.
And then there were others.
People I expected would be interested who never seemed to engage at all.
People I thought would celebrate the progress who appeared completely uninterested.
People whose silence hurt more than I wanted to admit.
I’d be lying if I said that doesn’t push on some of my own insecurities from time to time.
There are moments when I pour my heart into something and wonder if any of it matters at all.
Moments when the silence feels louder than the encouragement.
Moments when that little voice in the back of my mind whispers, “Nobody cares. You could stop tomorrow and no one would even notice.”
Perhaps you’ve heard that voice too.
I suspect most of us have.
At first, I found myself trying to make sense of it all.
Why does this person show up?
Why doesn’t that one?
Why do some people encourage us from a distance while others drift away?
The truth is, I don’t know.
And perhaps that’s the lesson.
People are far more complicated than the stories we tell ourselves about them.
The longer I live, the more I realize how little we truly know about what someone else is carrying.
We don’t know the weight of their responsibilities.
We don’t know the struggles they’re quietly fighting.
We don’t know the exhaustion they feel when they finally crawl into bed at night.
We don’t know which relationships are thriving and which are barely hanging on.
We don’t know which battles are visible and which are being fought in silence.
Sometimes a lack of response isn’t rejection at all.
Sometimes it’s simply the reality of being human in a world that feels increasingly heavy.
That doesn’t mean the silence never hurts.
It does.
But it reminds me to be careful about the stories I create when I don’t have all the facts.
I’ve come to realize that if I wait for perfect support, universal approval, or complete understanding from everyone around me, I’ll never move forward.
Someone will misunderstand.
Someone will disappoint.
Someone will leave.
But someone else will unexpectedly encourage.
Someone else will offer a kind word at exactly the right moment.
Someone else will remind you that what you’re doing matters.
And sometimes, that small act of encouragement becomes the very thing that puts gas back in someone’s tank when they’re running on fumes.
A quick text.
A thoughtful comment.
A kind conversation.
A moment taken to say, “I appreciate you.”
Those things matter far more than we often realize.
You may never know how close someone was to giving up before your words reached them.
You may never know how long they wrestled with doubt before your encouragement arrived.
You may never know how much courage a weary heart found because you took a moment to be kind.
Perhaps becoming who God created us to be requires learning to hold all of these truths at the same time.
To accept that people are imperfect.
To recognize that everyone is carrying something.
To offer grace where we can.
To release expectations we were never meant to carry.
And to keep moving forward anyway.
Not because everyone showed up.
Not because everyone understood.
Not because everyone applauded.
But because kindness COUNTS!
Dear Ones, purpose is too important to abandon just because someone didn’t respond the way we are hoping and our ego took a beating.
We need to remind one another that, sometimes, the encouragement we’re wishing someone would give to us is the very encouragement someone else needs from us today!
Until Next Time…
Keep Becoming!
☕ Join The Porch
Members of the Built To Be A Butterfly Community get emails like this every Tuesday and Friday evenings. If you found us through social media, Pinterest or Google, and this post encouraged you today, I’d love to invite you to Join us on “The Porch”.
What exactly IS “the Porch”? Hmmmm….
It’s exactly what your mind dreams up when it’s allowed to think of quieter, slower days. It’s a “place” we are building in cyberspace— that allows us to “gather” whenever our schedule allows, shut out the world and simple BE REFRESHED.
A 10 minute pit stop, twice a week where I share encouragement, faith-filled reflections and honest conversations about the journey of becoming.
And, if this season of life has you constantly on the go…. You can now listen to the audio version of this post on Spotify!
Pull up a chair, pour a cup of coffee, and stay awhile.
It was the summer of 2019. 