Messages in the Bathroom Stalls

The walls inside a bathroom stall can be quite interesting.  Everything from jokes and philosophical statements to gang signs and crude remarks can be found on these walls.  If you have ever been in a bathroom stall at an old, run down gas station, chances are pretty good you have seen some unique messages.

Normally bathroom stalls are not the place to learn spiritual lessons, but it seems there are exceptions.  A college student went into the bathroom stalls at the university she attends.  She began reading the messages written on the walls and noticed many sad comments.  Girls had written about their experiences with rape, eating disorders, dealing with an alcoholic father, and even the death of one girl’s dad.  As strange as it seems, this bathroom stall had become a place where several girls confessed and revealed the most horrifying parts of their lives.

The college student was touched by these statements and decided to write something in response.  She wrote a letter of encouragement addressing each girl specifically and taped it up in the bathroom stall (Read Her Letter Here).  It’s uncertain if any of the troubled girls read this letter, but at the bottom of college student’s letter someone else penned, “To the person who wrote this, thank you.”

Even though a bathroom stall may not be the most effective way to encourage someone, this girl demonstrated an attitude of encouragement; an attitude which should be found in Christians much more than it is.  Despite the fact this was put in a bathroom, this girl demonstrated what good encouragement is all about.  Her encouragement was sincere and personal.  She gave it freely and generously, even to people who many never read it.  No one forcer her to do this, she did it out of kindness and good intentions.

Hebrews 3:13 says, “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Adopting the college student’s method is not the point; adopting her attitude is.  There is no telling how many lives could be touched, changed, and improved if we just encouraged more. 

Let’s give encouragement freely and generously.  Let’s make our encouragement sincere, specific, and personal.  But above all, let’s make encouragement a constant fixture in our lives and speech.