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Kindness has been a theme of several conversations this fall -- from day one of our family devotions to discussions at my church moms’ group to our lessons at the Tigers Christian Club. Our journey through Susan Hunt’s My ABC Bible Verses began at the letter A with the verse: “A soft answer turns away wrath.” (Proverbs 15:1) We were enthusiastic on that first day. We said the verse several times as a family and even added hand motions to help us remember the words. For “a soft answer” we used one hand to pet the other hand, as if you were holding a rabbit or other soft, small animal. For “turns away” we would turn to look behind us, hands still raised a little so we could turn back around as we said “wrath” and show fingers curled into claws as we hissed the last word....and then giggled a bit. Several weeks later as part of our study through Shaunti Feldhahn’s book The Kindness Challenge, my moms’ group discussed another Proverb: “Kind words are like honey -- sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” (Proverbs 16:24, NLT) Feldhahn challenged us to think about how negative we were in our daily interactions with others. She charged us to pick one person and for thirty days do these three things:
I definitely saw improvement in the relationship I identified for the task -- so much improvement actually that others in my house started getting jealous of what they interpreted as me giving one person the special treatment! “Never underestimate kindness,” a woman shared several years back at an event for the Cabrini Green Legal Aid Clinic in Chicago. I remember thinking her message was so simple, but now after spending about a semester’s worth of time looking at the issue, I wonder, how often are we kind? For me, it’s the feeling of being rushed, of not having enough time that crowds out the patience it takes both to notice the little things and to praise them. If I can remember to slow down, kindness becomes easier. But why should we bother? Is it that important? Feldhahn used the illustration from Proverbs, comparing kindness to honey. She explained that the ancient Israelites used honey not only for a sweetener but for medicinal purposes as well. One of my small group members who works as a nurse piped up and shared that the wound nurse occasionally will use a product called Medihoney to treat patients. Another mom shared she had just applied honey directly to a finger wound and felt the relief almost immediately. So that’s honey. Amazing, right? But what does it mean for kindness to be “sweet to the soul and healthy for the body”? As part of the Kindness Challenge, we had to leave negativity behind -- even removing it from our thoughts if possible -- and replace it with kindness in the form of praise. A few weeks ago I had the chance to share this lesson with the Tigers Christian Club as part of our series on honor. After acting out the story of Haman from the book of Esther, we talked about how boasting is dishonoring. Then, two of the kids read the Bible verses for the day. The first read this: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-4, NIV) Then I asked, how do we do that? How do we look to the interests of others? A second kid read this verse: “Kind words are like honey -- sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” (Proverbs 16:24, NLT) We then moved to the craft tables where we glued Honeycomb cereal onto pictures of beehives to remember to use kind words to build others up, to honor them and to make them feel special. When they were finished with the craft though, I still wanted to show them how kindness can improve relationships (as Feldhahn stakes), how kindness can literally drive away the boasting and other dishonoring words that hurt others. With the kids in a circle around me I poured water onto a dinner plate, filling it nearly to the rim -- at which point the kids screamed for me to stop at the risk of spilling! “This beautiful, clean water represents your friendship with someone,” I explained. “Why is boasting wrong?” I then asked. “I’m going to show you.” I sprinkled pepper onto the water at which point all the kids groaned. Our display was clearly ugly now. “Boasting is like adding pepper to a friendship. It makes the friendship unpleasant like this pepper does to the water.” “Can we fix this?” I asked. “Today we learned about a secret ingredient that makes the boasting and all other hurtful words go away. That secret ingredient is honor, and today we talked about honoring each other by using kind words to make others feel special.” Then I had my daughter dip her finger in a clear substance and touch the water along the rim of the plate. The pepper responded by quickly retreating to the far side of the plate. All of the kids (and parents) gasped and then took turns asking “how did you do that?” “Does anyone know what the secret ingredient was?” I asked. “Oil?” “Vinegar?” “Honey?” I smiled at the suggestion of honey, and then a mom guessed, “Detergent!” “Yes,” I said, “it was soap!” I gave them a brief explanation of the scientific reason behind the demonstration: how pepper is hydrophobic so it rests on the top of the water and how when soap breaks the surface tension of the water, the water contracts away from the soap, attempting to stabilize the surface tension and as a side effect, draws the pepper with it. I then passed out homemade honeycomb soap and honey candies to the kids to remind them that indeed: “Kind words are like honey -- sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” (Proverbs 16:24, NLT)  **A special thanks to the mom who tipped me off to the melt and pour clear glycerin soap available at Michaels for purposes like these!
At the end of all of this, what have we learned? Kindness works. It’s also work! But perhaps with repeated small practices, as with hand-washing, it will get easier and more routine with time.
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