K is for Kindness {Blogging through the Alphabet}

Kindness

~the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.

"Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones." Proverbs 16:24

Looking in my KJV Bible for instances of 'kindness', the concordance only lists thirteen verses, but adding in 'kind' and 'kindly' the total goes to twenty-four. That seems like a small amount for such an important word. Then I realized, that is only in the back of the specific print edition of my Bible. Looking in the Strong's Concordance reveals at least forty-eight just for 'kindness'! That's more like it. That doesn't even take into account 'kind' or 'kindly'. 

Although the verse quoted at the start of this post does not contain 'kindness', 'pleasant' and 'sweet' came to my mind when I thought of 'kindness'. It took me a long time to come up with a word for 'k'. I have a feeling when I check others' abcblogging posts, kindness will be one of the top words chosen. I just didn't think of it first.

We want others to be kind to us. We go to the store and we'd like a smile from the friendly cashier or store personnel. When we go to a restaurant we expect kindness from our waiter/waitress. Driving through town, we expect kindness of other drivers. It's something that is taken for granted; we want to be shown kindness.

But how often do we fail to show it ourselves? How often do we snap at others when they do something trivial that annoys us or causes inconvenience? How often do we let our pet peeves zap our kindness? 

Lately, in particular one member of our family has been less kind than usual. It's a little strange to see and be on the receiving end but it's made me stop and think. First, I think what is going on in their life that is zapping their kindness. Second, since I cannot affect what happens outside of the home, what happens when I am not around, I had to evaluate how I am treating others. Am I being unkind and it is causing others to be unkind? 

We all have moments that we do something that we would like to erase or take back. We can never take back the unkind word or deed. We can realize our fault, recognize what we did was not right, and ask for forgiveness. We can make a more diligent effort to be kind. Especially when it would be much easier, and perhaps at the moment more satisfying, to be cruel with our words or actions. 

I cannot recall any point when Jesus was unkind. He was just in all situations, and exhibited extreme love and kindness. I am thinking now of the case against the adulterous woman; Jesus kept his eyes from looking at her shameful state, and then he said, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more" (John 8:11). What kindness! 

"Kindness"- a much better word for this K is for... entry than "kale" {smile}. See my other Blogging through the Alphabet entries, and read more of others' at Ben and Me.