Kindness

Kindness.

It is the simplest of things yet so many people just can't be bothered. Every interaction we have, big or small, long-term or fleeting - can be permanently marked by how we treat another person.

Since 2022 I have been quietly living my own "Year of Kindness". Trying to do my part to be kind even to those who may not deserve it.

Because, as the saying goes, we are all struggling with something.

This is, however, not to say that we should present ourselves as doormats. No indeed - even Jesus flipped tables when he saw epic wrongs.

This reappeared in a social media feed today - and I thought it was a good time to remind us all that being kind - is the simplest of gestures.

As Christians, it is an opportunity to let Christ shine out of our hearts - letting his light flow. I believe it is the unexpected kindness we gift to someone - all year long - that is our best way of showing people the goodness and mercy of God.

I Broke...

the girl who seemed unbreakable,
broke.
she dropped the fake smile and whispered,
"jesus i can't do this anymore."
and he replied,
"daughter, i never wanted you to,
i've been waiting for you to
let me carry you."

This is me, now.

For several weeks I have felt the breaking coming. Work has been a bear - more than that really. I lack the language skills to adequately describe it all. The people are:

• Truly stupid.
• Argumentative. 
• Know-it-alls.
• Literally filthy pigs. 

And the job itself - bombarded from all sides all day, every day. Not a moment to catch my breath before something else is shoved in my face with its attendant demands. And the load increases daily with no relief ever offered. Because there is none available. Not now. Not in the future. It is "the way" of the working world now.

I am surrounded by this day in and day out. It is a rough unpleasant experience.

Which brings me to the inevitable conclusion that I am burned out on my job. And I'm 3.5 years away from, hopefully, getting out of the great american rat race. So I must find a way to endure this - because I've been in this race for long enough to know it's not going to improve.

All of which reminds me that, despite my ego preferring to believe that I am in control, I am not in control. As I screamed in frustration this past week, I found myself angry with God.

For not protecting me from all this. For not cushioning my fall as I broke. For not being there to ease my burdens.

And then I realized - he's always there. But I haven't acknowledged him in weeks. Not truly. Oh I've said my prayers over meals, my nightly prayer as a fall asleep. But those are by rote...I know they are prayers but they aren't from my heart.

Not the prayer I need to be saying right now - to search out God, to ask him to see into my heart, and to take these burdens from me. He doesn't want me to break.

And therein lies the hardest question any Christian can ask - why does God allow suffering?

I have no easy answer, in truth no one does. Oh we have platitudes to say about how God wants to draw us closer to him so suffering is his way of getting that.

Sounds pretty - harsh - when you put it like that.

We can talk about free will of course. We are all free to make whatever choices we want and deal with the consequences - good or ill.

Again, pretty harsh.

Or we can talk about God's love for us. Which is always there no matter who we are, what we do, where we are, or how we behave.

I prefer to think of that. In the moment this past week when I lashed out at God - I felt horrible right away. I know God has "broad shoulders" and can handle my feeble attempts at getting angry with him.

Because that's all they are - feeble attempts. In the end, I collapsed on my bed, spent & exhausted from a bruising day of constant abuse and manipulation, absent of even the most common of courtesies. And turned to God and simply said - please lord, help me.

And he did. I immediately felt a little lighter, and went back to my at-home office and made the command decision to take Friday off. I'm glad I did. I'm halfway thru an unexpected 3-day weekend and while my perspective is still somewhat clouded by the lingering discomfort of my last few work weeks, I know that God is on my side. Always.

So when I break again, as I inevitably will some weeks or months from now, I pray I can look back on the moment this past Thursday when I finally set all the burdens down and asked God to pick them up for me.

Because it is what he wants to do. Because he loves us and we are never alone.

Duality

We've all had days like this.

At the end of such a day we feel - split in half. Maybe more than once. Pulled in different, polarizing directions all day long. Until we feel elastic and like we'll never spring back to normal again.

How do we reconcile ourselves when we feel this way? How do we gather ourselves back to center, to the heart of ourselves.

Well, first we have to set boundaries with the people we interact with. We can't allow them to take chunks out of us like some demonic plague of locusts.

Hyperbolic - perhaps. But the visual is undeniable.

As a life-long people-pleaser I know only too well what it's like to exist - sometimes just barely - when we don't set boundaries that are healthy for us. Because as a people-pleaser we know nothing about the self; everything is for everyone else. Never for us.

The saying about putting on the oxygen mask first comes to mind. It's a little cliche yet it rings so true for us "p-p" types.

Saying no is the first valid thing to do. Push back gently at first. Then more firmly if the boundary is rejected (and trust me, 75% of the time it will be). Become forceful if necessary but stand by the boundary.

Because you matter. It is OK to allow ourselves to come first.

Because God loved you before anyone else knew you. And if our Maker loves us then surely we must direct some of our energies to love ourselves.

There are a couple of Bible verses that illustrate this far more eloquently than I could:

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 4:9-10
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Since God loves us enough to become human and be crucified to save us - then I believe we owe it to God to love ourselves enough to get thru a day without feeling torn apart by others.

To be - fierce, strong, and courageous yet still being kind.  That kind of duality is sustainable, with God's love.

Sunday Prayer 3

Did you know that the heart is mentioned over 800 times in the King James version of the Bible? Or over 500 times in the New International version.

Something to pay close attention to. Clearly God wants us to know that he knows our hearts better than we do. And that he wants to be in our hearts 24/7/365. 

2023 is my Year of Kindness. I want to spread my own kindness outward to others - in words and deeds - in the hopes that the kind people already among us will do the same. And that the unkind may receive kindness and be transformed. 

You can't be kind if your heart isn't generous. God can grant you that generosity of spirit thru prayer and trust in him.