The Small Things - The One Year Daily Acts of Kindness Devotional

The Small Things

Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.

Romans 12:10

My husband sometimes travels for business, and among all the things I miss about him when he’s not home, I miss the cup of coffee he brews me every morning the most. He not only brews it, but he walks it upstairs to our room and hands it to me with a smile and a twinkle in his eye—a little nudge to get up and get moving. When he hands me that steaming cup of coffee each morning, it feels like he’s handing me a small, unspoken love note.

Marriage is made up of thousands of tiny interactions, and while grand gestures and fancy dinners are nice on occasion, it is the way we treat one another in the small, ordinary moments that so often slowly builds or destroys the love between spouses.

While practicing kindness is often considered something we do for a stranger or for someone who is going through a rough patch, I’d argue that practicing true kindness begins at home with our closest, most intimate relationships. It feels easy to skimp on kindness with our loved ones, because there is a tendency to take for granted our most intimate relationships—whether they are spouses, parents, children, or deep friendships. Let’s be honest: sometimes, practicing kindness toward our spouses is far more challenging than buying a stranger a cup of coffee on our way through the coffee-shop drive-thru.

While it is satisfying to shower kindness on a random stranger, the kindness we intentionally pour into our most intimate relationships will enrich and deepen our lives and the lives around us in ways far beyond our investment of time and energy. Kindness builds strong marriages and strong relationships one small act at a time. If you want the love between you and your spouse to be based on showing genuine affection and taking delight in honoring each other, start by quietly doing small intentional acts of kindness on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. You may be pleasantly surprised by the response.

—Julie

— Today’s Act of Kindness —

Who in your family needs an unspoken love note? Show that person a small act of kindness and love today.