Everyone’s home for summer! At my house that means late nights, excessive noise, empty pantries, and lots of making fun of dopey dad. It also means the home movies come out. We love our home movies. The girls can watch them for hours as if binge-watching a Netflix series. Me, I usually get a little stir crazy after a half an hour and leave to do a chore. When I come back and ask for a recap, they will either roll their eyes at me or give me the Reader’s Digest condensed version of the highlights I missed.

It seems like every time we put one in, I am reminded of some aspect of life that time has washed from my mind. Those films tell stories of good days, before sickness and heartache – when life’s weighty matters were birthday parties, lost toys, and homemade dramatic productions.

One thing that came to light recently was “Funday, Bunday” and it gave me quite a smile. When our third daughter, JB, was very little, she was testing the waters of ballet. She seemed to love it, but there was one problem. On ballet days, the dancers were required to wear ballet buns to school because there wouldn’t be time to fix their hair between the end of school and rehearsal. Little JB liked dance, but she did not like wearing her ballet bun all day. Her long, curly, beautiful hair has always been a point of pride. Although she assures us that the issue was not vanity but comfort, I am not perfectly convinced.

Her older sisters stepped in. Of their own accord, they volunteered to wear ballet buns to school with JB. This became known as Funday, Bunday and kept JB going when she nearly quit dancing simply because of the all-day bun.

Flash forward to today. Ballet is her life’s passion. She adores it, is incredibly good at it, and will likely continue dancing into college. She even teaches ballet to little dancers in their tiny, tight ballet buns. In fact, I would credit ballet and close friends from her dance studio as the pivotal factor that moved her forward after the death of her sister.

And I wonder… if not for the encouragement of two people she admired, would she have quit?

We laugh at the memory of all of them headed to school with their hair up tight. At the time, her sisters had little understanding of the consequences of this little act. But in the end, it may have been huge.

Do I take advantage of such opportunities? Do you?

I want to be a better encourager.

All of us are given moments when we can go a little out of our way to say a kind word or do something that lifts up another fellow human. Can you and I act on those opportunities to encourage others? If more of us did, what would that look like? We might never see the results of our kindness, but a simple act might literally change the future for someone… like Funday, Bunday did.