Unforgetting Kindness

Kindness:

an act of benevolence, consideration or compassion

It was a really gloomy day today. The kind of day where you just want to stay home and forget that you have any commitments or responsibilities whatsoever. But no matter how loudly the couch was calling my name, I had to ignore it and be a grown up. I loaded the kids up in the car and as we started down the road, the grim clouds overhead unleashed. 

UN.LEASHED. 

Approaching a red light, I realized that in this downpour, local middle school students were trekking to their first period class. I glanced over at my middle school daughter in the passenger seat and was overwhelmed with gratitude that she didn’t have to walk to class in the pouring rain. I could tell she was having the same realization as me. My mama bear heart swelled with emotion as I watched someone else’s little guy slosh across the 6 lane road. No rain coat. No umbrella. Just a backpack and a French horn case in his right hand. How would he go through the entire school day soaked to the bone?

I felt a little ridiculous for fighting back tears, but it was one of those days. Suddenly, as the boy exited the crosswalk lane and stepped onto the sidewalk, I saw a woman jump out of her car in the downpour, dart across the two lanes of stopped cars and shove an umbrella into the boy’s hands.

KINDNESS.

I don’t know anything about this lady’s life except that she showed all of us at the stoplight today what kindness looks like. She exited the comfort of her car, sacrificed her dry, warm clothing and handed over her umbrella, which she will probably never see again. It made me feel like there IS hope for our world! 

For me, and maybe for you, kindness can be lost and forgotten in the shuffle of my day. In a theoretical sense, I felt sympathetic for the French horn kid, even felt tears sting my eyes. But I was too focused on the task at hand, getting from point A to point B to remember that I had it within my power to actually extend kindness, to turn the compassion into an ACT of consideration. 

After today, umbrellas will forever be a reminder of the simple act of kindness I witnessed. May none of us settle for sympathetic feelings but instead wrestle hard to remember that kindness is an action.

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.
Colossians 3:12 // the message