Balcony and Basement People

I’m not going to lie.  This is the only book of Joyce Landorf Heatherley’s I have I have ever read.  It was a gift.  I don’t usually read books like this.  Too mushy.  I like facts.  Give me facts or be a wonderful person who changed the world and write your biography and I am in!  However, I enjoyed this book.  So much so, that I taught my children to be balcony people.  It was an easy concept for them to understand, so I know you will!

It is all about these two questions:  Do you bring people up or do you drag them down?
 What is your impact on the lives of others?

A “Balcony Person” brings people to a higher place – where they can flourish, pursue their passions, & become better human beings. They encourage, help, give, serve, and are considerate.  They are enthusiastic & joyful, quick to forgive, good listeners, diligent, compassionate. They simply make people’s lives better. They also make others strive to be better.  They know how to encourage others to grow. Sounds like Jesus doesn’t it?
 It doesn’t always sound like me for sure!

“Basement People” bring others down – through discouragement, temptation, selfish behavior, sin, criticism, poor attitude, impatience, and just plain meanness. They hold grudges, back-stab, act lazy, fail to follow through, seek their own glory & benefit above others, talk too much (or not at all), & take things out on other people. They don’t care; they’re too concerned with their own lives and not how they make others feel.  They make people’s lives more difficult. They don’t invest in other people. They don’t make your world a better place, they make their world a better place.

A pastor’s wife, here in town, is a wonderful friend of mine.  Laura Wilson is a few years older than me and her children babysat my children and my children have babysat her grandchildren.  We have been blessed with a Godly friendship. She gifted this book to me, thanking me for being a “Balcony Person” in her life. But as I read it, I thought about how that was HER for ME!  We are truly blessed to have one another. She encouraged me to raise Godly children and lifted me up when I had little sleep raising 3 little ones. She has been in my balcony for 23 years & it is a more beautiful place because she 's there.  My baby even took his first steps to her instead of me! 

But Laura is not the only one who belongs in my balcony. I drew the short stick, on some family;  but boy did God make up for it with friends!   I hope that even now, you are thinking about the Balcony People in your life. But you have to switch that around too…what people in your life would put YOU in THEIR balcony?  There are many ways you can be a balcony person and each of you know how to do it, be Christ-like.  

 I John 2:6 Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way 
in which he walked. 
 

We are born “Basement People”.  In other words, sinners without the fruits of The Spirit.  I had a time in my life where I was constantly in my children’s basements.  It was when they were 18, 16 and 14.  I’d start to climb the stairs to the balcony and with one crash, back to the basement I’d go!  It is called parenting.  Still too me, it felt awful to be a basement person.  It felt ungodly and just plain wrong.  Sometimes, esp as mothers, we have to live in the basement a while; it's not really where we are but where "they" perceive us.  But I am speaking of everyday right now.  Some people are ok to be basement people, they like the dark.   

But because we are children of God, He desires us to be in the balcony and I think it is because our view of HIM IS BETTER from there. Today, think about the people in your balconies and basements.  Then turn that around and ask yourself, or even others, where would you put me?  It’s a scary thought, but an easy fix one stair at a time! (and some people's stairs are steeper than others) 


Hebrews 3:13 says "exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today", that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." 

I Thes 5:11 says "encourage one another and build one another up"

The reality is life gets stressful, most of us stay a little stressed.  Remember, one day doesn’t put you in a basement or balcony of another person’s life.  It is constant work & selflessness to get to the top, and it is laziness and selfishness that send us to the bottom.  Praise God, all I had to do was ask to be in His “Balcony” and He said YES!

Ephesians 2:8

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God