Writing Kindness, Goodness and Gentleness on Souls

Rafael, my son, and I entered an Hispanic restaurant on Monday designed like we were walking into the ocean. Blue "water" engulfed our senses. Chandeliers of bubbles cascaded from the ceiling.

Bubbles are beautiful, and they burst easily. God created our feelings. Our feelings are sometimes as fragile as bubbles. Kindness helps to protect them and bring out their beauty. Kindness complements feelings. Kindness is not a feeling, but a behavior that God living on the inside of His believers gives us the choice and ability to do. Galatians 5:22-23 Amplified Bible says, "But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness, gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things there is no law [that can bring a charge]."

Kindness may require us to go out of our way to show someone we really care about them after we did something contradictory to kindness. Cindy Beall is married to pastor, Chris Beall, who came home one day and confessed to numerous affairs with numerous people from numerous places. One woman was carrying his child. Cindy Beall writes in her book, Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken Finding Forgiveness and Restoration, "From the moment of Chris' confession, his goal has been to restore my trust in him. Even when I doubt and question him, he does not get defensive or have a "get over it" attitude. He knows his actions caused me indescribable pain, and he accepts the responsibility as his own. He will do anything to help me feel secure in our marriage. He has laid down his life for me."

Kindness seeks to understand people and how we are influencing each other. A lot of arguments and conflicts among spouses, family, friends and others are really about people not feeling valued or respected and not so much about the issues being argued about. Read my article "Tie Me Up?"

Water fills the ocean. God desires to fill our life. When God fills our life, our life is full of goodness. Goodness used to be a euphemism for God. Dr. Albert Schweizer, a Christian missionary, who left Switzerland to go to the Congo in Africa and take care of lepers, inspired African American Patricia Bath. Bath became a doctor herself and earned fours patents. Bath also pioneered the worldwide discipline of "community ophthalmology," a volunteer-based program to bring eye care to underserved populations. With three other doctor friends Bath founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness (AIPB) to help blind people in third-world countries have access to eye care.

Goodness does not view and treat people as problems. Goodness steadfastly seeks to overcome obstacles hindering people from living the best possible life. Romans 12:21 Amplified Bible says, "Do not let yourself be overcome by evil, but overcome (master) evil with good."

You may not be called to be a doctor, a missionary or to start a nonprofit group, but you are called to bring goodness to family, friends and all your relationships. Read my article "7 Ingredients for Intimate Relationships."

Goodness and gentleness swim together in the same ocean. Gentleness embraces people instead of acting on attitudes like, "I don't like you. You don't measure up to my expectations of how someone should behave, so I'm going to try to harm you." On Tuesday of this week a restaurant manager, not at the ocean-decorated restaurant, told me that Rafael was disturbing his patrons. Rafael, a 19-year-old man, went to the restroom on his own and came back to sit at our table three times because somebody was probably using the one-toilet-only male bathroom. I asked the manager was Rafael harming anyone. The manager said no, but his presence was disturbing paying patrons because he would pace some instead of stand still waiting while the other person was in the bathroom. I explained that Rafael has autism. The manager said he could see that he had a disability. Since the manager could also see that I was refusing to give him an inappropriate apology, he paid for our meal.

Conflict is inevitable. Swimming with gentleness is a witness to everyone of God/goodness living on the inside. Robert Mark Alter, a psychotherapist, writes in his book, Good Husband, Great Marriage Finding the Good Husband...in the Man You Married A Relationship Revolution, "One couple I was seeing told me that every time they started to bicker or argue, their seven-year-old son, Sam, would start to sing very loudly and beat the sides of his head with his fists, and their four-year-old, Krissy, would say, "Please no fight...please no fight...please no fight..." with tears running down her cheeks. When you have children, every way you are is being watched, everything you do gets seen, every word you speak gets heard, everything that happens in your family gets written in their soul."

Please leave an on-line comment sharing how you are writing kindness, goodness and gentleness on souls, or to say, "I like this article." Please also contact me at my email address michefrancesjackson@gmail.com to join my relationship group.