Dear You: The Call of Kindness

Dear You: The Call of Kindness

“I have more grace for others than I have for myself.” You’ve said it so many times it sounds worn on your tongue.

I know it, too. Others-centered kindness, that’s been my life story. The good girl, defined so many of my years. Don’t cause too many waves. Be good to people, be kind and do what earns their acceptance and pleasure.

Back then, my tender soul didn’t even know what I was losing in the process.

I didn’t know I was writing a narrative that would etch into my beliefs about myself. I didn’t know I was living kind to everyone else, while sometimes being a mean girl to myself. Always pushing, try harder, try harder. Always needing to please, earn love, earn love.

The more you train the little girl inside of you to feel like you’re not worthy of kindness…the more you believe it. The more you divert from receiving love, the walls around your heart thicken enough to make Gods kindness distant, seeming too far to reach.

Then there are moments. The moments our inner voice swells within us like a tide. Do you remember me?

Inside, the voice is gentle, soft.

It’s your voice calling out tenderly. It’s the little girl that wants to be understood. The one that just wants to be reassured, you’re doing okay. That thing you just messed up, doesn’t define who you are. Your life matters, more immensely than you could ever know.

Its a task that takes time, learning self-compassion and kindness. The same kind of compassion that we give to other people, God designs us to breathe into our being, that love that comes straight from His heart.

When we need a model for true kindness, we can look to Jesus.

He speaks to the wounded pieces in our hearts. The places that are most broken, the places we need reassuring. With God, His lovingkindness always draws us home. It’s that kindness that makes us fall in love with Him, all over again.

I love Jeremiah 31:3 where God sings,

“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with lovingkindness.”

Gods lovingkindness is a force we almost can’t reconcile. His grace, His understanding of our human condition, His acceptance of us any time we return to Him, like the Father who just wants us to come home.

I’m standing at the edge of a flowing stream, watching the way the waters crash on the waves, over and over. It’s the same way Gods kindness crashes over us. He envelops us into this love. The love that doesn’t demand we be perfect. The love that doesn’t demand we pretend we’re not human. It asks us to humbly come into a space where we can be loved by God.

God’s kindness frees us to live as nothing other than human. It frees us to care for the little girl inside of us.

Maybe it’s time that you write yourself an encouraging letter. Try speaking tenderly to your soul, as you would a dear friend.

When that little girl inside you sees that she’s doing just fine, and she has a place in the world, she can dance. She can care for other souls better. And the light that radiates from within her may just set the world on fire.

“Because your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise you.”
Psalm 63:2

-Kerri Lynn