Seasons Of Kindness - The One Year Daily Acts of Kindness Devotional

Seasons of Kindness

Commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.

Deuteronomy 11:18-19

“How do you participate in acts of kindness when you have young kids?”

This was the endearingly honest question a mom of two young kids asked me after hearing a talk I gave on showing acts of kindness. She wanted to incorporate kind practices into her family’s life, but with such young children, she had the very valid concerns of how to include them and find the time to do it.

I told her that I understood and that it’s okay to participate at varying levels depending on what season of life we are in. I encouraged her to start with what her family could manage and grow each year as her kids did. She told me she would love to help serve the homeless at our local shelter but that her kids were too young to bring along, so we brainstormed ways she could go once a month while arranging for someone to stay home with her kids. Finally, I told her she should always come home and talk to her kids about what she had done and why.

These conversations allow our kids to see the motivation behind our kindness toward others in tangible ways, and thus they see our faith lived out through our actions and in our lives. In turn, they come to see acts of kindness as a normal part of everyday life and begin to copy our behavior.

Don’t forget to talk with your kids or other family members about acts of kindness you’re doing. It will encourage and spur them on to do the same as they see you putting God’s word into action.

—Kendra

— Today’s Act of Kindness —

Do one small act of kindness for someone, and then tell your kids or other family members what you did and why.