One of my strongest spiritual gifts that I have in the Lord is words of affirmation. The Lord has revealed to me how to use it and what it means to have the spiritual gift of affirmation. In a nutshell what I have learned is that, I have the gift of encouragement to others. For the first few years in my relationship with the Lord I had been practicing this through mainly using words. Then as time went on, and the Lord was growing me more in my gift, he started teaching me that it was more than words—it was in my actions also.
Pii Nien is an amazing, beautiful woman of God that I have met here in Sikoraphum, Thailand. Being in the same room as her you can feel the presence of the Lord. She speaks very little English, and her husband is Pastor Sutan in the church we are working with. He also speaks very little English. Since we have been here working with them I have been feeling myself being so frustrated that I can’t talk with her one on one in the way I desire to. Every time I see her I want to use my gift of affirmation, and encourage her and tell her how she has blessed me and how beautiful she is in the Lord. I find myself struggling and almost giving up to even try to encourage her, because I feel like it useless if I can’t actually verbalize anything to her. But then the Lord reminds me that it’s not just in words how He wants me to use my gift he has given me. Language barriers mean nothing to God. He has no barriers. Therefore we have no barriers. This is when I have to rely on God more than ever, because I know that what I do and say can’t be from me. I have had to put aside my preconceived ideas about how I think I can be encouraging to her, and just let God work. In the past two days I have felt closer to her, and so blessed from her than I have since we’ve been here. The Lord has shown me that hugs, smiles and acts of service speak louder than any words I could ever speak to her. Also, He has been using my relationship with Pii Nien to teach her some English, and she has been so excited to be able to learn more. She has become more and more confident in speaking English as the days go on. I am anticipating the days to come to see how much more the Lord is going to work in my relationship with Pii Nien, and how much more He is going to teach me and grow me in the gift He has given to me.
Once again, the Lord is teaching me how to rely on him completely, and set myself aside. What a hard lesson to learn, but I pray that He continues to challenge me in this lesson every single day.
