{Be Real} Kindness that Moves
It didn’t feel like kindness. It felt more like compassion. It felt like God’s breath.
Buy flowers.
It was a simple thought that came to me in the Trader Joe’s aisle. My heart was aching for my friend who was missing her dad on father’s day, for the grief that would surely envelop her and her mom’s heart that day.
I planned to leave the sunflowers at the door unnoticed, and then drive away. Surely they were out with their family. But something made me ring the bell, and just wait for a minute. My friend’s mom greeted me at the door, open to receiving not only the flowers but my presence, and invited me to just sit with her.
It was in those moments that the flowers became more than kindness – they were grace. A grace that flowed both ways, between both of our hearts.
I think that’s what kindness is. It’s a stream that opens in us when we are deeply moved by another’s existence on this earth, it’s what happens when we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes.
It moves us.
When I think of true kindness, I think of what it must have been like to look into the eyes of Jesus when he walked the earth. He saw, with eyes of compassion. He saw.
“Jesus had compassion on them, and he touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.” -Matthew 20:34
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” -Matthew 9:36
Jesus didn’t look at people, he looked through them – right into their heart.
Kindness is always a response of the heart.
True acts of kindness are not random at all. I can’t encourage you to give your things away and send people pretty packages and give people flowers for no reason. Because what is random about kindness? What is random about giving a stranger your shoes?
Five years ago, I was standing on a pile of garbage in Haiti, standing there with my heart breaking, when a woman asked me for my shoes. I didn’t hesitate to take them off. I gave them to her. When my feet stood on that broken ground, it humbled me in a way I’ve never experienced before.
In that moment, I literally stood in someone else’s shoes – without shoes. I felt the dust beneath my feet the same way that they felt every day.
The hard thing about being kind is that it opens us to feel another’s pain. Pain flows in, before kindness and grace flow out.
But that’s what Jesus did. He opened to the pain of seeing us. And that’s what He calls us to in His name.
It hurts to see pain, it hurts to feel pain. But something about giving our lives away in response, sews the heart back up and makes us more whole than we started.
When we give, we find it’s God that is stitching His heart in us. The heart that always mends, heals, and puts us back together, in ways we couldn’t even fathom.
The question that remains: will we let ourselves be moved to kindness? Will we let our eyes open to see pain and brokenness?
We can trust that every day our hearts are moved, every day we give of ourselves, it works with a weight of glory that we can’t see on this side of eternity. It’s God’s breath traveling through us, from heart to heart. He’s showing us, and showing them – He is still here. He is still kind. He is still good.
Girls, what a gift that we can be agents of showing people God’s presence and goodness here on earth! What a calling!
I pray over us today that the Lord will breathe into what He has put in our hands. I pray that we will see what we have to give in a fresh way. And I pray that we will be moved and changed by seeing brokenness and the giving that flows right out of us. When our source is Jesus, that kindness will flow as a river that has no end.
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”
-Colossians 3:12
