35. Build Each Other Up
One of my favorite Bible verses is from 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 11: Therefore, encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.
I wish it were true that I do it all the time but it’s one of the things I strive for.
I have a grandson who at the end of this month will be 23 years old (how could that be possible). He and his mother lived with us in Nyack and I did a fair amount of childcare joyfully with him.
One day when he was about two or three we had told him that he needed to get an adult to go up or down the steep wooden stairs with no carpeting, and he came up to me as I worked away at the typewriter downstairs and said, “Annie, Zach wants to go upstairs.” I wanted to keep working. (We had already discovered that sometimes when he couldn’t think of an answer, he would say something that was often said to him.) So as I sighed and said, “Oh Zach, what do you want to do upstairs?” he thought and then said, “Zach so proud of you, Annie!” Well you can believe we went upstairs together.
I’ve also never forgotten that story, for to tell the truth it had been quite a while since anyone had said that to me. I hope I can be a part of building up others.
