Have you never just needed a quick boost of encouragement? You’re mid a tough season. You hope a silver lining is on the horizon – but even if there isn’t, you just have to keep moving.
Or maybe you have a friend who is walking in those shoes. Someone you care about needs a little boost. You think about buying them flowers. You look online and think, “wow, flowers are sort of crazy expensive”.
You have a choice.
- Buy the flowers anyway and hide the receipt from your husband.
- Decide that your friend is a super strong woman and doesn’t really need the encouragement, right now, after all.
- You make some cookies to mail to her. But you know she has a gluten allergy, or she’s on a diet. The package arrives but it’s summertime so the chocolate melts into one big pile of sugar.
- You buy a card, but don’t exactly know what to write in the card, so it sits on your counter for a week…
OR….you go online and send a loved+blessed encouragement box.
I received a loved+blessed box a couple of weeks ago, and wow, was it the perfect gift to find in my mailbox. 
First – it’s beautifully packaged! A really cool surprise in my mailbox!
The theme for this particular box is PRESERVERANCE and comes with the message on the lid of the box:
Perseverance is steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or a delay in achieving success. Or to put it more plainly, it’s when you resolve to keep moving forward, even when you want to give up. It requires patience, the ability to rebound from setbacks and to keep going even when facing adversity. The beauty of it though is that as you persevered you are one step closer to what God has for you. One step deeper into understanding the plan He has for your life. So, FIX YOUR EYES ON JESUS and just keep running the race He’s marked out for you.
So what I needed to read!
The box contained a mini-poster, magnets, shoelaces, a card to share with someone else, and other little reminders of God’s faithfulness.
Loved+blessed are boxes of encouragement, created by a woman after discovering she and her husband could not have children. The concept? That often women need encouragement. They need help. And often times what they struggle with isn’t in the typical list of topics that a church’s women’s ministry knows how to handle.
Each month, they send out boxes of encouragement to subscribers, or you can just buy individual boxes for past months (like my friend knowing that perseverance was the message that I needed to hear right now!). People who subscribe are also a part of a strong, online community of women who support each other as well as receive much needed messages of hope throughout the month.
What a great concept!
Now, I like flowers and chocolate chip cookies as much as the next girl….but flowers fade, and cookies aren’t going to help me be less stressed…they are going to make me more stressed as now I have to add going to the gym as part of my to-do list!
But reminders like: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” (Romans 12:12) and “…being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” (Colossians 1: 11-12) will resonate with me for a lifetime.
This is the stuff that lasts. Truths that don’t fade! Encouragement that isn’t temporary! Support that doesn’t give you a sugar high!
Check out www.lovedandblessed.com. And don’t worry – it’s OK to send boxes to yourself! Just think of it as getting a package from a dear friend each month.
Go encourage someone who needs it today friends…so them they are loved and blessed!
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