The Letter K, Kindness

It seems this week has flown by, my house has become a wreck, I was a mental wreck, to much to do, work all week, busy in the evenings, rain, rain and snow, no time for rest, no time to breath, I am typing this as fast as I can, can any of you relate?

The letter for today or this week, is the letter 'K' for Kindness. So, what does kindness mean to you? Does it mean being nice all the time? Does it mean going out of your way to help someone else when you can? Does it mean saying please and thank you? Stopping what you are doing to help someone else? Lets examine the word Kindness, but before we can, we must examine the root word Kind. (For those of you who don't like English or grammar lessons, I am sorry for being boring here).

Kind, to be considerate, generous, gentle, loving and benevolent (benevolent - expressing goodwill, desiring to help others, intended to benefit others not for personal profit.) (Taken from the www.http://dictionary.reference.com. On 03/01/2009).

I do my best each day to go out of my way to show kindness to someone I don't know, someone I know and children. We can all help each other without giving money away and most people don't really want your money, they want your time, your company, your compassion.

This week, I have been so blessed to have kindnesses shown to me. All the Emails and prayers for my health (I am seeing 3 specialists this month), I can feel the love and prayers going up for me. My son calling me and keeping me posted almost every minute on the impending birth of our beautiful grand daughter Jeanne. Prayers for her health when she had some glucose troubles (she is home now).

A student at the alternative school where I work on occasion kept asking me to stop buying coffee at 7-11 and come in and give their cafe a try. Oh my! First, I ordered the coffee which made him smile, then I checked my pockets and lost my money and told him to cancel it. Without skipping a beat, with a huge smile, he told me he would cover it. I walked to my car and it was in the seat and had fallen out of my pocket. What a very kind thing to tell me and it blessed me to know what a generous spirit this school has. The same day, I was invited to stay for lunch and enjoy the potluck with the teachers. As a sub, they could have just sent me home. Kindness abounds in places unknown.

I won some fabric from Marguerita this week and she sends me an Email to let me know she was sending a little extra because she had been meaning to for awhile now. WOW! How generous was that and kind! I was humbled.

Letting someone cross in front of you when you are in a hurry, let someone merge into traffic, go first in line, open the door for someone, help someone load or unload their groceries, shovel a walk way when a neighbor is gone, take their trash can in from the street, there are so many little ways to be kind and be sneaky about it. Some things you are in the open, but many times you can do it on the sly and walk away giddy with joy in your heart.

Today at church one of the dearest ladies I know asked me after church if I would like to borrow her quilt frame. Would I! What a generous and kind thing for her to offer me. Especially knowing this belonged to her husbands mother and grandmother and it is a family heirloom that I will be entrusted with.

Yesterday our dearest friend John came to visit and spend the day and night with us. John lives about a two hour drive from us, but he always calls us ahead of time asking if he can pick us up anything from Costco (we are about 50 miles from the closest one) and he shows up with a few groceries and before I realize he is in the house, I find him putting stuff away in the fridge.

My house was a wreck and he starts doing my dishes while I am helping the kids clean up their rooms. He takes things to the basement for me, he helps me clean off my couch, sweep my floors and no matter how much I tell him to stop and he doesn't have to do this, I know it isn't going to do any good, because John has a kind spirit and he knows (I hope) that the things he does is such a blessing to me and gives me time to catch up.

John listens to me talk silly talk about tearing my kitchen cabinets apart and putting new ones (I am looking for that tree that grows money..LOL), he sits with me going through the Penny's catalog to help me find living room drapes, we talk about politics, we talk about family, we are friends and his kindness always touches my heart. After dinner we all went out to look for a new dishwasher for the kitchen and he treated us to ice cream cones.

The kids climb all over him, talk a mile a minute all vying for Uncle John's time and hugs and laughter and affirmations and he never complains.

Kindness is when my husband buys paper plates for us to eat off of because we haven't had a dishwasher since last year sometime, when the living room is warm in the mornings, when he comes home with my favorite yogurt, when he watches a program he doesn't want to because I asked him to watch it with me.

Kindness is simply treating others in our home, at work, in public as we want to be treated. I have had many strangers show me kindness when my sons were in prison, when I was sick or injured. I hope in some small way I have given back what I have received. I hope I have been more of a giver in life than a taker.

To all who have shown me kindness, thank you for raising me up and showing me how wonderful the world can really be. Show kindness to everyone and please know, none of us are perfect, we all are short at times with people we love, strangers, etc. It is when I am unkind that I am reminded I need to be doubly kind to make up for the pain or anger I may have caused.

Being kind is easy, it is when I am unkind that I feel guilty.