I received a PM (private message) over at Willow Traders, the scrapbooking message board I frequent. The message arrived at 9:41 pm, and showed up just seconds before I was going to sign off for the night and go to bed. My heart was heavy, because a family near and dear to my heart is hurting so badly right now. It's one of those situations in which you just want to take their hurt away from them and carry it yourself, because you cannot bear to see such wonderful, loving, giving people suffer. You wish you could carry the burden for them.

But more on that later, because I'm still struggling with what to say, how to make them feel better, and how to take their sorrow away. I know I can't, but I want to so badly.

Anyway, this PM was from a woman I don't know. Though we are on the same message board, there are just under 3000 members there, so it is impossible to know everyone, or even most of them.

But she wrote that she has been thinking about me and praying for me. And the most wonderful sentence she wrote was "Just wanted you to know someone is praying for you and rooting for you."

Isn't that amazing? I wrote back and tried to convey just how much that meant to me, that someone I don't even know cares about me and is rooting for me to make it through! Of course, I didn't succeed in conveying that; I merely succeeded in repeating myself over and over again.

But to me, that means so much. You know, or at least hope, that those who know and love you recognize the hard times and pray for you, pull for you to get through it all unscathed. But for someone I don't know to take the time to write me privately, to let me know that she's rooting for me...It makes me feel like I can do anything. I have a cheering section that I didn't even know existed! And I admire her, for too often, I let my brain talk me out of things that my heart tells me I should do. Like sending money to someone that I know needs it. Or giving someone I don't know that well a hug. Or emailng someone to tell them I care.

So I resolve to do better about that. To go with my heart more often and to tune out the skeptic in my mind. I'm usually confused about whether it is God pushing me to do something, or just my mind conjuring up ideas. But if I feel something in my heart, I'll believe it is God telling me that the person I'm thinking of needs a little something. To me it may be little, but if the PM I received is any indication, it may very well be a huge deal to the recipient.

Thank you Kristen.