I didn’t know what to say. I just didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t. How do you tell someone who has had a profound impact on your thinking, on your theology, on the way you walk around this earth, just what exactly they mean to you? How do you say this to them when this is the first time you have met them in person?

I think we have all been there, we are meeting someone in person, we are finally launching out of a place and we want to tell the people who have shaped us before we go. Just because we have grown out of yearbooks doesn’t mean we don’t still have need to mark things down, to let people know.

Just watching you navigate the world make me braver and stronger

I see the way you quietly love people, that is important and does not go unnoticed.

The day you brought me dinner I was at the end of my rope, you made it possible for me to hang on.

I think you are beautiful, inside and out. 

Thank you. Truly and deeply, thank you.

These are things we do not say. It isn’t that we don’t want to, it is just that the things seem to get stuck in our throats, they get all the way almost out, but before our tongues can form them, before the breath makes them alive we swallow hard.

The timing is wrong.

They will think I am stupid.

I don’t matter enough.

I am busy, they are busy.

I might cry and embarrass both of us.

So we swallow instead of say and move along without anyone knowing. We don’t want to say the wrong says at the wrong time in the wrong way. We don’t want to be weird, so we don’t say anything at all.

Scarcity. We are afraid that there is only one right way to tell someone just how awesome they are, how much they mean to us. We are afraid there is only one chance to say the says, and we don’t want to mess it up.

This may be the dumbest scarcity lie I have ever believed. Y’all, when was the last time you gave someone a compliment, encouraged them and they were like “dude, STOP IT!” Rarely is ever. That isn’t actually a thing. There isn’t just an abundance of space to encourage people, there are an abundance of says to say. But scarcity would like us to shut our face.

BUT I WOULD LIKE SCARCITY TO SHUT HER FACE!!!!

And it that spirit I am going first. Esther Emery is at my house today. Like not her words on my blog, but her body is in my house. We agreed when we became writing partners that the first person to get a book deal would visit the other. Esther’s words will be in your hands in April, and we have been hanging out for almost a week.

And I haven’t toasted to her. With all the meals we have shared I have not raised my glass and said, “Here’s to you, here’s to your influence on my life, here’s to keeping crazy promises and here’s to your beautiful beautiful words.” But I will. Tonight. Over veggie pasta, with cheap champagne in mason jars I will say the says that need said. Even if she would understand,  and not even mind if I didn’t. I mind.

Say the says.

This week we are love bombing just a little bit differently. Choose someone in your life that you need to say the says to, and then say them. Don’t make this too complicated. all too often scarcity tells me a facebook comment isn’t good enough, that I should send a hand written letter, but my life doesn’t allow for that. #wholemama is about getting it in where you can fit it in. Think Text message or Facebook. Then, link you saying the says in the comments and we can all go encourage each other in that act! I love LOVEBOMBING SO MUCH! This has been a highlight in an incredible and beautiful summer. Thank you.