Living on the western coast of Alaska means there are not a lot of ‘extra’ things to do. There is the school, the post office, the store, and that’s about it. And so I find that I watch a lot of movies in my spare time. One of my recent favorites is Cinderella, and probably the reason I like it so much is because Lily James plays the lead role of Ella. At the start of the film young Ella’s mother tells her daughter to always “Have Courage and Be Kind.” This becomes the leading theme throughout the rest of the film.
Have Courage and Be Kind.
But what is kindness? What does it mean to be kind?
Some friends and I are currently reading and discussing C.S. Lewis’s “The Problem of Pain.” In Chapter 4 he remarks that,
“Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. Thus a man easily comes to console himself for all his other vices by a conviction that ‘his heart’s in the right place’ and ‘he wouldn’t hurt a fly’, though in fact he has never made the slightest sacrifice for a fellow creature. We think we are kind when we are only happy:” C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: HarperCollins, 1940), 49.
This got me to thinking, how often am I actually kind? When your day is going great, it is so easy to act kind. Perhaps you hold the door for someone or you tell them to have a nice day. When you are happy, it is usually reflected in your attitude.
But what about when your day is not going great? Maybe your students are acting up and not listening, or you have been dealing with impatient customers all day long. This is perhaps when we can truly show kindness. When Cinderella was at her lowest moment, her stepmother and stepsisters had just destroyed her dress and left for the ball without her, she still showed kindness by getting the old woman (aka her fairy godmother) a cup of milk. Our bad days are our best days to show kindness.
You may now be asking yourself, “Kate this sounds wonderful, but what on earth does this have to do with the world race??”
Well let me tell you, I am so excited to see what God will do in my life and the lives of my fellow world racers on this journey. But I know we will all experience ‘bad’ days. We might just be homesick or dealing with inner struggles, but I encourage us all to take these moments as an opportunity to shine. Take just a minute to set aside whatever you’re feeling or struggling with and show kindness to someone. It might be a stranger or someone you know. It could be something as big as carrying their groceries five blocks to their home, or as small as telling them to have a good day. Whatever it is, I encourage all of us to “Have Courage and Be Kind.”
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23 NIV
