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TITLE: Loving Encouragers | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tammy Ortung
02/27/20
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Loving Encouragers

I sat with my participant’s guide open on my lap, rapidly jotting down notes as I periodically glanced up at the beautiful, passionate, and perfectly coiffed blond on the screen. She stood on a tiny stage surrounded by women of all ages voraciously absorbing her every word. I’d done so many of her DVD-driven series that I can’t recall which study this was, but I remember her challenging us to be “loving encouragers.” It changed my life.

“Tammy, will you lead a workshop at the women’s retreat this fall?” a woman from church asked several months later.

“Sure, what topic?”

“Whatever you like,” she said. “Just let me know, so I can make sure there aren’t any redundancies.”

I built a workshop around this loving encourager concept influenced by a sermon my pastor had preached on love. He had talked about the “unlovely,” not the unlovable, but about loving those people who were a little odd; those we might normally avoid or ignore. I knew I could do better in this area, and I thought maybe others could as well.

“Tammy, I have just the woman for you to lovingly encourage,” Loni, a woman from church, said after the retreat. My initial thought was, Why aren’t you loving on this woman?, but I had the distinct impression she was challenging me to put my words into action.

This woman volunteered to fold bulletins each week, so one Wednesday afternoon I stopped by the church to meet her. Loni met me in the foyer and we walked together down the narrow hall to the back office and through the door on the left.

“Tammy, this is Kitty,” Loni said. “Kitty, Tammy.” She was in her mid-fifties with thick brunette hair. As I shook her hand, a friendly smile flashed across her pudgy face. We chatted for several minutes about how long she’d been coming to the church, where she lived, and so on.

“Do you sing?” I asked, having already considered ways to include her in my current activities.

“Yes.”

“Awesome. My neighbor and I sing at the local VA home once a month, you should join us.”

“I’d like that,” she said. “Do you want me to audition?”

“No, if you say you can sing, that’s enough for me.” I didn’t tell her that most of the residents couldn’t hear very well anyway.

Kitty was a nurse, until a stroke at thirty-nine prematurely ended her career. She lived alone, barely surviving on her meager disability checks. At first, she seemed capable of working, until I realized the stroke had erased some of her social filters.

One day we were walking my hazel-eyed, chocolate Newfoundland, Bronx, along the waterfront. At one hundred and ninety pounds, he always garnered lots of attention from passersby. “I thought that was a bear.” “Beautiful! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog that big.” I heard almost every time we walked.

Kitty, Bronx and I made our way to the end of the walkway, then looped back to my car parked behind the local library.

“What kind of dog is that?” A man sitting on a bench outside the library in a tank top and shorts asked. “He sure looks fluffy.” Bronx had started pulling me in his direction at the sound of his friendly voice. The man stood up to pet him as we neared.

“You look pretty fluffy yourself,” Kitty said and chuckled. I gaped at her, embarrassed, still not completely prepared for the odd things she would often do and say. The man, to his credit, seemed to ignore her comment.

Kitty wasn’t mean spirited, just different, yet most of the church women avoided her. An elderly lady once came up to me and said, “Bless you Tammy for befriending Kitty.” I was shocked. Weren’t we all called to love even our enemies—those people who make our lives difficult? The Bible says that even sinners love those who love them, weren’t we supposed to do better?

Months later Kitty left the church. “I attended that church for a year and a half and didn’t make one friend,” she said.

“I’m your friend,” I said.

“You know what I mean.”

Unfortunately, I did. The breaking point had been when Kitty needed emergency surgery. I’d asked the church women to cook a meal or visit her, but none could be bothered. My heart still breaks over it. Didn’t God call us all to love even the odd and unlovely?

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