I appreciate the vocabulary my son is gaining from our Good Dirt devotions. We’ve been in conversation a lot recently about living God’s Way and the idea of turning the other cheek causes eyes to open wider and wheels to turn in the brain. There are many times when such conversations end in ways I wish they didn’t - “No, mom, I don’t do that”. But I know that each and every conversation works in his heart and they’re all important. Kingdom Living – Lord, teach me Your ways. I want to walk in Your Truth.
Our son’s favourite questions at the end of the day are the ones that ask “When did you feel joy or sorrow today?” For some reason, these speak his language and capture his attention. All the other questions are “hard questions”. One night after brushing his teeth he asked, “Ok, mom, is it time for when you have joy?” It took me a second to understand but the cool thing about that question is that the answer is always “yes, son”. Even in the midst of sorrow, there can be joy. The answer is always “yes”.
Kingdom Living – Lord, let Your joy remain in me so that my joy may be full.
Living life as an expat offers plenty of opportunity for us to show kindness when we don’t feel like it. Perhaps those opportunities abound regardless of circumstance or situation. But it feels amplified out here as a foreigner. I have more conversations with my son about showing kindness than any other thing. Multiple conversations – daily. His enemy: Grandmas (Halmoni). They travel in armies and they all want to touch his sweet face and ask him how old he is. Many of them don’t know kindness the way we would expect the elderly to know kindness and so I feel it is important to share what we have in our heart through our smiles and bows. Oh, but it’s hard when you really don’t want to!
Is kindness required of us whether we want to show it or not!?
This week, kindness was the main topic of conversation during devotions because we kept being asked what Jesus’ life was showing us about His Kingdom. Ah, Kindness. Finally, my son, still fighting the battle in his mind about when kindness is warranted, says “Kindness fills you right up and makes all the bad in you go away.” The selfishness. The need to be right. The need to ‘have enough’. Kindness causes us to share and to give of ourselves. Oh sweet boy, you’ve given me something to think about for a while. Thank you.
Kindgom Living – Lord, let Your Kindness dwell in my heart so that I may have the Law of Kindness on my tongue
-tamara