Yo soy La Lay

Sometimes, time passes between posts and I can barely feel it.  Life heads full speed ahead and there’s no time for reflection or much thought at all really.  Writing, my vital outlet, is shoved into some back corner of my life, jammed in between long discarded hobbies like getting manicures and scrapbooking.

But on other occasions, I feel the distance between my schedule and the thoughts rolling around in my brain.  There’s an electricity in my fingers, an itch to sit in front of a screen and get the words out, but sweet time escapes me at every turn.

This is why, at 11 pm while my family is well off on their nightly journey in the Land of Nod, I’m tossing and turning.  The weeks since my last post, while not overwhelmingly interesting to any outside reader, have been powerful.  In the clearing out of our first home and subsequent return to the home of my adolescence, self-reflection has been running rampant in my brain.  Maybe it is just the big, gulping breath of the freedom of summer, maybe it is all of the transitions happening to me and around me, but I seem to be stuck on ensuring that I am being the best that I can be for my husband, my children, my family, my coworkers, my world… and a disappointing feeling that I am not sure if I have done this well in most recent times.

This morning in church, our pastor gave a phenomenal message about the spiritual importance of kindness.  While I spent so much of his sermon wrangling a squirmy and overtired 4-year-old, I desperately clung to the words he shared, feeling as if God had put me into that pew for a real reason today.  I have written much about being kind and try to live it when I can, but I wonder if I have truly accepted the call to love thy neighbor… all of thy neighbors… and to show kindness to all, even the ones who challenge me or grate on my nerves at every turn.

The greatness of God’s grace is that we can fall short in the task of caring for our fellow man and still feel His love and acceptance.  But this kind of deep kindness that has been on my mind today is the core of what I’m asking the world to do for my own child – to love her, unconditionally, without doing so out of guilt or charity.  Have I done this as often as the opportunity has arisen?  Even with those who challenge every moral fiber of my being?  And if I have not been able to do so myself, how can I ask it of anyone else? 

Deep kindness in action.  Be the hands and feet of God.  Go to it.