Day 16

Truth- When were you were changed by someone else’s kindness?

Dare- Bake cookies and deliver them to a neighbor you have not met. 

When was I changed by kindness?  I am changed by kindness every day, I am just not aware of it.  Yesterday I had coffee and cake at my friend Petra’s house.  We were talking about conflict.  I made the observation that people are often quick to label others.  I, for example, am overly sensitive to criticism.  So I have this shame label that reads overly sensitive hanging around my neck. It is the one and the only thing some people see.  They do not notice everything else about me.  They fixate on my weakness and absolutely miss my strengths.  My friend Dianna Frey who is so kind to me encouraged me to read a book called “The Search for Significance” by Robert McGee.  In the book, he tells a story about getting kind words from 9 people and a mean word from one person.  Who do we give our thoughts to?  The 9 who were kind, or the one that said something mean?  I am the type that will obsess over the one mean person.  But I am so blessed with kindness.  And over this past year conflict and meanness have dominated our lives.  I have had to grow a thick skin. But I’m trying to put things in a proper perspective.  There are good and bad qualities in all of us.  It is not good to fixate on the weaknesses and not notice what is good.  And I want the eyes to notice the kindness that surrounds me.  And I will listen to criticism…but it needs to be heard in context.  It is always only part of things.  It should never be everything.  Kindness is so often a drink of cold water in the desert.  We live in a world that is so dry.