THE ART OF ENCOURAGEMENT
As promised, an update on my meeting with an agent:
It went really well. She liked what she read. I don’t need my back up plan just yet.* She asked me to send her a full proposal and the rest of my manuscript. She didn’t gush about my writing; all she indicated was she liked it and was interested in seeing more. That is all it took. I was giddy for the rest of the night. Apparently, I don’t need a lot of encouragement to feel success right now, just a little.
It is funny how some days we need bead after bead of encouragement to feel our work, our appearance, or we ourselves are okay… that we are succeeding at being alive. It takes a true artist to navigate the canvas of encouragement.
Too much encouragement feels like false flattery, and not enough can leave people wanting and needing more. This is an art I am not confident I have mastered.
I’m a fairly positive person, yet after half a meal at the dinner table, I will realize I have said five negative things to my son about his posture, the size of bites he has taken, and the way he is holding his silverware. No joke. I am that mom. My poor son!
Thankfully, I will get a check in my spirit occasionally and remember to shut up about his table manners for a minute and ask about his day, then listen… really listen. It is hard work sometimes, like when he wants to talk about Minecraft. There are other times, when I am blown away by how great he is.
He is seriously one of my favorite people….even when I am listening to him talk about creepers. I fear there are times he doesn’t know how amazing and wonderful I think he is.
Today I told him about ten times how handsome he looked at church, how proud I was he looked people in the eye during greeting, and how nice it was he spoke to others with clear and direct answers. He is becoming a man, and I want to make sure he knows he is enough.
I don’t want my son to grow up wondering about his worth because I spent more time criticizing than I did encouraging.
God, give me grace as I work to be a mama to a man.
(Oh, and if you are curious…. My grand back up plan if the agent doesn’t end up liking the rest of my book? Self publish. I know, I’m a real mastermind. lol)