People: Characters with Skin On!

Beautiful Sky Ranch, in East Texas, provided my summer occupations during my college years.  I remember meeting a guy down there … I wish I could remember his name . . . I’ll just call him Cole, but I don’t think that wasn’t it. 

Anyway, before I met Cole, he was described to me by one of my friends. “He’s really cute, and he talks kinda slow, and when he says, ‘How are you?’ he really means it.”

True conversation from almost 30 years ago. Why would a woman who has trouble remembering her birthday remember something so trivial as that conversation?

1^st Reason: It was true; every bit of it. He was cute, and he did talk really slowly (a curse from being raised in East Texas), and that boy was as sincere as the hot, Texas, summer day was long.

2^nd Reason: I reflected back on the conversation after I met him. “How are you,” he asked; I mean he really asked, and then he listened while I told him about my first day at the camp. Then he did something amazing: he responded according to what I said! He hadn’t been nodding, trying to think up the next clever thing. He had actually been listening.

Right then and there, I made a commitment to do the same thing. I wanted to be sincerely interested in the people I came across and greeted. I would be the queen of ears instead of hearts and would reflect on what people said before I ever considered responding, and I would weigh whether they really wanted a response before I offered one.

Yeah, right.

Well, I did get the greeting down anyway. And sometimes, I make a pretty good listener. While I taught in Coppell, I trained as a life coach, so I can turn the listening button on when I need it, but that’s about as far as I could take it.

Still, I’m amazed at people who have such a sincere heart; who really have a deep desire to listen and make a difference, even a small one, in someone’s life.

Who do you know that is a good listener? What is it that they do, that makes you want to talk to them?