Stress Stop or Rest Stop?

While on a trip recently, my husband and I stopped at a rest area along the way. You wouldn't think of a rest area as being a place that brings tears to your eyes as sweet memories fill your heart, but that's exactly what this one does for us. You see, we have been stopping at this particular rest area for many years. It is between our house and our son's house. We've been traveling to visit him ever since our daughter was young and our two oldest grandchildren were born. So, there are many memories of our daughter running out into a beautiful meadow there and pictures in our minds of our two grandchildren rolling down a hill and laughing like crazy and us laughing with them! There have been tears of joy over meeting them there and tears of sorrow when we had to say goodbye to them there. Yesterday the thought came to me of how thankful I am that God has provided that rest stop all these years. And it is a place of beauty and cleanliness and even of friendliness to break up our trip and make it more pleasant. The question came to me, “Am I like a rest stop for people who come through my life? Do I give a kind and encouraging word to help them on the way? Or am I a stress stop who loads them with complaints and criticisms and who makes them wish they had never crossed my path? O Lord, my prayer is to be a rest stop! Please help me, by letting the Holy Spirit be in control of me, give others a smile, a kind, encouraging word and help them along their way instead of hindering them. May I even give them “words of life” - the Gospel – or at least plant some seeds of it. May I make Christ known to all who make a rest stop in my life. May they go on their way rejoicing because it has been a “divine encounter.” I thank God for the people He puts in my life who are a rest stop and not a stress stop for me! Let me be a blessing today by thanking them. There are even those whom I have only met in print, like the Apostle Paul. Every time I read his letters I am so encouraged. She he is a rest stop for me! But Jesus is the ultimate rest stop, a refuge, a hiding place. In this way, as in every way, may we strive to be like Him.