Kindness can make the world go round
Every mother I know has her own arsenal of wisdom that she imparts to her children. Words of encouragement, words that are meant to sooth, words that direct and guide. The underlying sentiment of these arsenals is always one of positivity.
I have always told my children that you can only ever have one thought in your mind. If negativity fights to invade my mind, I actively work on replacing it with something positive. I have found that this strategy has had a profound impact on how I navigate my way through life.
What a tremendous gift it is to discover time and again, that every bit of wisdom that we need to understand our own bigger picture, is to be found within the pages of the Bible. The only thing required from us is to make the time to search, understand, embrace and implement it.
One of the rewards of reviving this blog, for me personally, is that I am actually making time to think about topics that are important to me. Then I go on to research it somewhat and lastly, I have to make time to write something comprehensive about it. I make sure that I always return to the the Bible to see what is written there about the topic and ultimately I am able to enrich and strengthen my arsenal of wisdom.
Take the concept of kindness. I recently woke up in the early hours of the morning. I realized that I was not going to fall asleep again soon and decided to raise my awareness so that I did not miss what I was supposed to hear. This is something that I started doing since I walked the Camino in Spain for the first time. I find that in those quiet hours of the night, when there are no distractions, I am able to be really close to God and being open to His Word comes naturally.
A single word eventually filled my mind, arriving like a little feather floating on a breeze. It soon became all consuming and after pondering on it for a while, I knew that I'd have to give it life somehow. The word was simply 'kindness'.
So to the Bible I went. The words that I fell in love with are to be found in 2 Peter 1:5-7.
" ...add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love."
Such a basic characteristic - we're all born with the capacity to be kind, until the world we live in robs us of it. Some never seem to find it again and some of us, well, we don't lose the capacity altogether but we seem to struggle to express it at times. I speak for myself when I say this, but I'm sure most people will relate. So this week, I am going to be making a concerted effort to be kind. Kinder than I instinctively want to be whilst I am filled with so much anger about the horrors taking place around me.
Our country is bleeding and our people are literally being slaughtered around us. Women and children are defenceless and farmers are being brutally robbed of their lives as if they never mattered. How then, are we to remain kind? Again, I go back to the Bible, as I so desperately need to know HOW?
And this is what I found - Nehemiah 9:17 says:
" They refused to obey, and they were not mindful of Your wonders that You did amongst them. But they hardened their necks, and in their rebellion they appointed a leader to return to their bondage. But You are God, ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and did not forsake them."
This verse refers to the core of a loving, kind Father who is prepared to forgive those who are actually repentant. I also know that God, and God alone will judge. But where does that leave us? Normal, decent people who are also sinful but desperately want to live good lives. And what about those who have lost loved ones because of the horrors perpetrated by the monsters who live amongst us?
This I know for sure. I don't understand evil. But I do understand good. I understand the promises and commandments I read about in the Bible. I know that God is good and that evil comes from another source. I also know that because we have been given free will to make our own choices in life, bad things are bound to happen. Not everyone chooses good.
The fact that good people suffer because of the bad choices made by others, breaks my heart. I do know however that for those who choose to believe, there is an everlasting chapter to come that is completely free of evil and the reward for a faith based life is exactly that.
The following truly resonates with me.
"Kindness is not something that demands hard work. It originates from the simple act of doing no harm to others." - Tony Fahkry
A few months ago I took my ten-year old grandson to walk the Camino in Portugal and Spain. Somewhere along a forest path, we discovered a colony of stray dogs. We are both animal lovers and when we noticed a number of young pups huddling together while the adults were eating food from a bowl, we could not walk on without making sure they also got their share.
The adults kept the puppies at bay by growling angrily every few seconds. The little ones were clearly very hungry and we decided to chase the older ones away from the bowl so that the little ones could feed as well. We did this successfully and my grandson insisted on sitting with them until they finished eating, we knew that the minute we left the older ones would take over again.
I recall this incident because it epitomizes kindness in my book. Firstly, I honour the anonymous stranger who placed a bowl of food (and probably does this on a regular basis) in the middle of nowhere so that stray dogs would have something to eat. And secondly, my heart swells when I remember the incredible kindness shown by a little boy who chose to sit there in silence guarding those little pups until the last one had his fill. THAT gives me hope.
We are born with kindness embedded in our DNA. Let's nurture it within ourselves and encourage others to do the same. They say love makes the world go round, I'd like to believe that kindness can do the same!
What a tremendous gift it is to discover time and again, that every bit of wisdom that we need to understand our own bigger picture, is to be found within the pages of the Bible. The only thing required from us is to make the time to search, understand, embrace and implement it.
Take the concept of kindness. I recently woke up in the early hours of the morning. I realized that I was not going to fall asleep again soon and decided to raise my awareness so that I did not miss what I was supposed to hear. This is something that I started doing since I walked the Camino in Spain for the first time. I find that in those quiet hours of the night, when there are no distractions, I am able to be really close to God and being open to His Word comes naturally.
A single word eventually filled my mind, arriving like a little feather floating on a breeze. It soon became all consuming and after pondering on it for a while, I knew that I'd have to give it life somehow. The word was simply 'kindness'.
So to the Bible I went. The words that I fell in love with are to be found in 2 Peter 1:5-7.
" ...add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love."
Our country is bleeding and our people are literally being slaughtered around us. Women and children are defenceless and farmers are being brutally robbed of their lives as if they never mattered. How then, are we to remain kind? Again, I go back to the Bible, as I so desperately need to know HOW?
And this is what I found - Nehemiah 9:17 says:
" They refused to obey, and they were not mindful of Your wonders that You did amongst them. But they hardened their necks, and in their rebellion they appointed a leader to return to their bondage. But You are God, ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and did not forsake them."
This verse refers to the core of a loving, kind Father who is prepared to forgive those who are actually repentant. I also know that God, and God alone will judge. But where does that leave us? Normal, decent people who are also sinful but desperately want to live good lives. And what about those who have lost loved ones because of the horrors perpetrated by the monsters who live amongst us?
This I know for sure. I don't understand evil. But I do understand good. I understand the promises and commandments I read about in the Bible. I know that God is good and that evil comes from another source. I also know that because we have been given free will to make our own choices in life, bad things are bound to happen. Not everyone chooses good.
The fact that good people suffer because of the bad choices made by others, breaks my heart. I do know however that for those who choose to believe, there is an everlasting chapter to come that is completely free of evil and the reward for a faith based life is exactly that.
The following truly resonates with me.
"Kindness is not something that demands hard work. It originates from the simple act of doing no harm to others." - Tony Fahkry
A few months ago I took my ten-year old grandson to walk the Camino in Portugal and Spain. Somewhere along a forest path, we discovered a colony of stray dogs. We are both animal lovers and when we noticed a number of young pups huddling together while the adults were eating food from a bowl, we could not walk on without making sure they also got their share.
The adults kept the puppies at bay by growling angrily every few seconds. The little ones were clearly very hungry and we decided to chase the older ones away from the bowl so that the little ones could feed as well. We did this successfully and my grandson insisted on sitting with them until they finished eating, we knew that the minute we left the older ones would take over again.
I recall this incident because it epitomizes kindness in my book. Firstly, I honour the anonymous stranger who placed a bowl of food (and probably does this on a regular basis) in the middle of nowhere so that stray dogs would have something to eat. And secondly, my heart swells when I remember the incredible kindness shown by a little boy who chose to sit there in silence guarding those little pups until the last one had his fill. THAT gives me hope.
We are born with kindness embedded in our DNA. Let's nurture it within ourselves and encourage others to do the same. They say love makes the world go round, I'd like to believe that kindness can do the same!
"Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness and honour.'
- Proverbs 21:21
So very beautifully said and so true ♡
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