Love is Kind
Yesterday a blog reader left this comment about the recent post “Because She Said So”:
Your story about listening to your elders brings to mind one of my own. Recently my husband and I went to a wedding reception for a couple who my husband did the ceremony for earlier in the day. The groom’s 97 year old grandma told us that she liked to dance, that she always had, and she didn’t know why! So the next dance my husband asked her to dance with him. He came back laughing and said that she told him she had never danced with a minister before, and she couldn’t wait to get down to the Senior Center to tell them!
Sometimes kindness is a combination of love and paying attention and that is exactly what this blog reader’s husband was doing.
I think I remember sharing with you before about the mama I heard teaching her child one time. I didn’t see what prompted the lesson. I only heard the lesson. It was a one-word lesson. The mama said — well, actually, she fairly shouted  — the word, “Kindness!!!” The trouble wasn’t the word, but the tone she combined with it. The tone was anything but kind.
Proverbs teaches a a great kindness combo:
Do not let kindness and truth leave you;
Bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
Proverbs 3:3
Hosea teaches us another:
Therefore, return to your God,
Observe kindness and justice,
And wait for your God continually.
Hosea 12:6
When the apostle Peter visited Joppa, he met a woman who combined kindness and charity:
Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha
(which translated in Greek is called Dorcas);
this woman was abounding
with deeds of kindness and charity
which she continually did.
Acts 9:36
In our interactions with others — child, husband, parent, friend — a good question to ask ourselves before we speak or act is this one: Is this kind?
Love is patient, love is kind . . .
1 Corinthians 13:4
. . . the fruit of the Spirit is kindness . . .
Galatians 5:22
And here’s one more kindness combo — kindness and wisdom. That’s a combo every homeschooling mama can use every day.
She opens her mouth in wisdom,
And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
Proverbs 31:26
If you live in reasonable driving distance
of Cookeville, Tennessee,
please join us for Street Robber
this Thursday, Friday, or Saturday!
