Lisa Byrd was one of those people that had an abundant heart. It’s been 47 years since she left the building. I still remember how her energy was so vibrant that she nearly glowed. She was a cheerleader, the good kind, for both her freshman and sophomore high school years. She didn’t cheer much in the second year, but she wore her uniform even when she had no hair and was relegated to a wheelchair. She knew nearly everyone’s name in a school with over 3000 students. I have no idea how she did that. I’m tearing up just writing this because she really was the example for me about this type of abundance.

Sometimes called emotional intelligence, or people skills, it is a seemingly rare form of abundance. People get rewarded for even small blessings in this area. We see it in every walk of life; just not that often without an agenda behind it. When we do see it, it’s usually part of one of the most memorable human interactions in our day, if not, like Lisa Byrd, in a lifetime.

But what can we do with this type of abundance? It is ever-flowing. It cannot be stored up in a barrel. It can’t be shut off and saved for later. Look around though. What work are people with this gift involved in? Abundance isn’t good abundance or bad abundance; it’s what we do with it.

Who comes to mind? Good or bad, they could charm anyone. They knew just what to say and when to say it. They “could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves”.