Choose kindness, every time 10

There are three ways to the ultimate success.
The first way is to be kind.
The second way is to be kind.
The third way is to be kind.

Mr Fred Rogers

My baby girl was 6 weeks old. I was sitting in the mother’s room at church on my own, trying to get her to stop crying. Hopeful, but teary and feeling stretched beyond all human comprehension. I had barely slept since the day that she was born. She was my firstborn, I was doing my best; but in that moment and on that day, it just didn’t feel like enough. I just could not get her to settle. I was 26, newly married to a man I barely knew that I had met in drug rehab and fallen pregnant to. 

I was found, and yet I also felt very lost.

I felt lonely and alone; realising, in that season, that they most definitely were two very different things. I had no friends and I had prayed for some, well, at least one.

On that messy day, in that broken moment; in she walked. With her 6-week-old son, he was her third baby; she reached out to me by starting a conversation, over the cries of my own young one. With that one simple act of kindness, my life was forever changed.  And, in turn, the lives of every person whose life would ever be touched and changed by the ripple effect of my own life and my choice to be kind every day since that very moment.

She had no idea, how could she? She was just being herself and choosing to be kind.

She invited me to her young mums small group, and I told her that I didn’t have a car. So, she borrowed an extra baby car seat and picked me up; faithfully and loyally, for months and years. She embraced me, and her kindness reached a wounded place in me that longed to be fully seen and truly loved.

Those babies just celebrated their 18^th birthdays. Since that sweetly fateful day in the mothers room, we have journeyed through many seasons together and experienced mountains high and encountered valleys very low. I had two more daughters that she equally embraced as her own.

She journeyed closely alongside me through two painful relationship breakdowns and divorces; sometimes being the only voice of truth that I could hear.  She sat with me when I was shaking with fear, she let me cry snotty tears all over her shoulders, she lifted up my arms when I could barely breathe.

This week she took me out for lunch and lavished me with words of truth and generous kindness; again! A faithful bearer of the Father’s heart and the loyalest of friends.

Her kindness changed me. It gave me courage and reminded me that no matter what, I would rise again.
And, I did.
And I will again.
Every time.

Friend, there is other people’s freedom on the other side of your choice to be kind. Always. Every time. There will never be a time in each one of our lives where the choice to be kind would be the wrong choice.

Let’s start a kindness revolution by loving well and choosing kindness every time.

Imagine the ripple effect that we will create!! It’s worth a try, right?

Bronwen