Kindness Matters

Kindness Matters
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It doesn’t insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. I Corinthians 13:4-7

I’m a big consumer of podcasts. A wide variety of informative, entertaining, and uplifting stories distract me while I’m logging multiple miles running. Like a good book, a podcast can take me away from the reality I’m experiencing until I arrive at my destination.

Yesterday, I was listening to Bob Goff’s Dream Big podcast and he made a statement that stuck with me. He said “Words that are spoken by kind people are ones that have a shelf life in our lives. Surround yourself with kind people who speak words of truth to you... Give away generously the good that has been stored up in you.”

Think about it.
Kindness matters. Kindness matters to us and to others. Kindness sticks with us. It makes us smile. It makes us feel good inside. It makes whatever burden we are carrying lighter. Kindness makes tough times easier to bear. Kindness matters.

I was waiting a few years ago for my husband to wake up from outpatient surgery. I had been sitting for a couple of hours alone in the dark when a nurse quietly came in propped my feet up on an extra chair and covered my legs with a warm blanket and walked out. She didn’t say anything. I hadn’t asked her for anything. She just did it. Her small act of unsolicited kindness changed my day. It made my waiting easier. I felt seen. I felt loved. I felt cared for. I get a little misty just thinking about it today. That one small kind act had a shelf life in my life and the one who did it doesn’t even know.

We have been given so much goodness by God through Jesus and because of that we can be generous in goodness to others. Our faith should make us generous. Our world is filled with fear and anxiety right now. Let’s be conduits of hope, grace, kindness, and love. Let’s reach off our lives’ shelf of kindness and feed someone some hope today. Let’s all do one small thing to show kindness to someone else today because kindness matters.
​

---