When Kindness is Attractive

For a long time I was like a child, wanting to hold my wound in front of their face and say, “See what happened?”

I’ve seen how miscommunication can tear people apart; I’ve learned the impact silence can sorely have on a person. There was a time when a new found friction broke my heart. There was a time I felt jaded by the wind of conflict. I had opened up the door, stepped outside, and was hit with a gust of brokenness that sent me spinning. We weren’t made for this. 

What do you do with your wounds or that lingering anger?

For the longest time I fumbled with the bandage to wrap around those wounds. Sometimes I’d scratch the scarring to keep it open and fresh, maybe even making a wound bigger than it originally was. When I came near to the past and to the people it held, I didn’t know what to do. In my heart, I would try to forgive; but for the longest time I wondered, 

How do I live out forgiveness?

Something in me didn’t want to pretend everything was fine when it clearly was not. I wanted to let them know I was bothered by it all; but I only kept silent and confused. 

Even now, I see a kind of pain in this broken world, cracked by the swelling heat, like a volcano waiting to erupt. 

It often happens on a pixelated screen, typed out in fevered texts on platforms we have made into what seem to be the worst of communities these days. Oh yes, I see the name blaming, the view shaming, the passive aggressive remarks, the haughty sarcasm, and the capped lettered yelling. Some random shake of a little more salt for the open wounds. Just one more try to outwit the other person. One more attempt at claiming the title of victor. Isn’t it always easier to force points onto people rather than lovingly live the points into life?

I don’t belittle anyone’s pain; nor can I compare it to my own. But there is an issue of brokenness hanging like a cloud over every heart.

And then I see Him there on that cross. When I’m ready to give my two cents. When my own heart gets weary by all the arguing, and the empty threats, and the bullying, I see Him there in unimaginable form. I see Him loving them and loving me. I see Him loving the soldier with the hammer in his hand. 

I’ve been sitting here in my room, thinking of that Roman soldier- the one whose job it was to hammer a nail through flesh? Have you ever wondered if, as He knelt down to crucify Jesus, he was disturbed at all by His groans, His shouts in pain? Or was it just another day for him? How could he still keep hammering amidst the gut-wrenching wails of friends and family nearby? 

I wonder of the spectators who stood in front to watch the slow agonizing death of a man that did them no wrong. Oh how they could so cold heartedly mock a man as he struggled to catch His breath. What of the moments before, when He was mocked and spat upon? 

And Jesus, God in flesh, could have ended all the empty threats and ugly lies. He could have simply come down from the cross and ended their lives right then and there. He could have put them up on those beams instead. He could have shunned them. He could have outwitted them in any argument. But He refused that opportunity.

Could it be that the point and time Jesus was the most misunderstood and the most mistreated was also the greatest time He showed His love? I believe the moment Jesus was most abused, was the moment His mercy was the most visible. 

Rather than the time to shun, it was the time for the door to open widest and welcome those who would come through to Him for the opportunity of life. 

It was the time He cried for God to actually forgive them.

I had stared at it blue in the face for so long. I had seen the cross and the blood there in the letters on the pages. And still I asked,

How do you live out forgiveness?

It was autumn and we had a long car ride ahead of us. My parents and I had just visited my sisters who were living in Tennessee at the time. As we made our way back home, we turned on the rough cut copy of our friend’s new album he gave to us. I sat in the back, staring out the dark window, letting tears quietly flow as I realized how simple the form of forgiveness. It isn’t rocket science. There in the song, a light seemed to flicker in this brain of mine. That’s it. “I will be gracious, to the ungrateful. . .To the cruel, I will be kind.” Could I have even said that these were wounds of cruelty I was dealing with? I’m not sure that I could even take it that far. Sometimes I had witnessed others endure it; yet these people weren’t even my enemy. But to the cruel, even the cruel I was called to be kind. How much more then should I be greeting the painful remarks and the harsh misunderstandings, and sometimes rejection with kindness?

From his album To the Kindness of God, Michael Card shares in his song, “I Will Be Kind,” the reflection of that ancient Hebrew word hesed. He defines that word as an overwhelming grace that occurs when “the one from whom I have a right to expect nothing, gives me everything.” As someone who personally receives that kind of grace she doesn’t deserve, I’m compelled to pass it on to everyone I meet, regardless of how it will be received. I need only be kind.

As I listened to the song, those determined statements sunk into the wounds like a balm. There was nothing I needed to show anyone or prove to anyone. There was nothing I needed to prove to myself. And may I say, there is nothing dear friend, you need to prove. Let people think what they may. There is Someone who offers you the extension of grace, if you would only see it and receive it. As for me, I will choose to be kind when I see them. Why?

I find Him there in unimaginable form, loving them and loving me. I see the soldier, hammer in hand, and I find my own face there. I see my own sin pounding that nail down on the One who did me no wrong. And He still chooses to love me. 

Maybe the question had been wrong all along. Maybe instead of worrying how I lived out forgiveness, I should have been asking,

How do I live forgiven? 

And the wound no longer needs the bandage. The edges slowly shrink in size. It sits like a scar, maybe if only to remind me that I’m forgiven- reminding me I’m the greatest sinner who has received the greatest kind of grace. It comes- this desire for kindness. And sometimes, sometimes slowly, Christ begins to stitch the unraveled threads in reconciliation.

Kindness- it’s most attractive in the face of conflict. The way we choose to live our lives can be a better protest than heated words and angered silence. 

I’m still learning to say to myself that it’s okay if I’m not always understood. I’m sure there are many I have misunderstood myself. There’s a love with roots growing deeper the more I drink in this thirst quenching Water of Life. I’m known, fully known by the One who I care for most.

I only hope and pray that you will drink from Him too. 

Maybe together, in the scenarios of our day-to-day lives, and in our modern world of social media, we can become bolder to live Truth; more intentional in the way we present what is true; more apt to speak encouragement; quicker to walk away from gossip; more eager to pray; and more willing to love as we’ve been loved by Jesus.