Small Acts of Kindness: Lunch with a Friend

By Kathy Cheek

My friend and I hadn’t met for lunch in a long time since she had moved across town and was going to a new church. After we were seated and were sipping our iced tea, I asked “How are you doing?” and her “fine” didn’t sound fine at all.

When her voice started to tremble and tears welled up in her eyes I knew something was wrong and when she began to spell out a difficult situation in their family she also shared that she hadn’t told anyone because she was afraid of what others would think.

She admitted that holding it in and not talking to anyone seemed to just make the stress harder to bear. She finally realized she needed to be open and we talked about the fact that when we don’t share our burdens we end up adding burden to burden.

What do I mean by adding burden to burden?  The best way I know to describe it is when we have difficulty sharing our burden with others because we think it is too much for them to handle, we are adding a new burden to our already existing burden. This happens when we are reluctant to open up with people and talk about what we are going through, not wanting to impose our problems on others. When we keep it in and think it is too much to put on others, we are adding burden to burden.

God made His family to have that desire to come alongside hurting people and help them through the hard times. This is part of His plan to carry us through those difficult times and out of the valley. God goes with us and brings others along to walk the journey with us.  Pain is not a journey meant to be walked alone. We don’t have to walk alone when we let friends and family help us in our time of need.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Click to tweet: Small acts of kindness. Lunch with a friend. #smallactsofkindness #kindnessmatters

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Kathy Cheek writes faith-filled devotions and is published in LifeWay’s Journey magazine and Mature Living, and also contributes to several devotional sites, including Thoughts About God, Christian Devotions, and CBN.com.

Her favorite subject to write about is the rich relationship God desires to have with us and the deep trust it takes to live it out. She and her husband of 33 years live in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas and they have two daughters and one son-in-law who also reside in the Dallas area. You can read more of her devotions at www.kathycheek.com.

Kathy is thrilled to announce her book First Breath of Morning – A 90 Day Devotional is contracted to be published and will be out this fall! You will find info and a description of the book on her Book News page at Devotions from the Heart

 

Small Acts of Kindness: Just a Candy Cane

By Kathy Cheek

I have a favorite candy cane that I buy each year during the Christmas season. It is the Hershey Candy Cane with a ribbon of chocolate running through it. I have never bought any other kind since the first time I had one of these.

Last year when I was purchasing my annual first box of the season, I noticed the clerk behind the Walgreens counter looked stressed, tired and overworked––not real surprising this time of year. The last thing he needed was me piling on by rambling to him about my ultra-favorite candy cane, but I did. I just happen to think everyone should try them! He just continued to look stressed and totally uninterested in my candy cane monologue.

As I began to step away from the counter after paying, I poked a whole in the package and pulled out one of the candy canes to start enjoying right away. I pulled out a second one and turned back to the counter and offered it to him. In an instant, his wearied face broke into a giant look of surprise followed by an even larger smile. “For me?” He accepted it with a huge thank you. I watched him carefully lay it on a shelf behind him and he turned to me and said he looked forward to having it on his next break.

I wondered to myself if anyone had ever given him something for nothing or showed him a random act of kindness.

It was just a candy cane. Or was it more?

As we cross paths with people during our day, and especially during the frenzied hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, we need to offer smiles, patience, grace, and kindness. We just might change the course of someone’s stress filled day, with a smile…or with a smile and a candy cane.

Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering;

Click to tweet: Small acts of kindness. Just a candy cane? #smallactsofkindness #compassion

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Kathy Cheek writes faith-filled devotions and is published in LifeWay’s Journey magazine and Mature Living, and also contributes to several devotional sites, including Thoughts About God, Christian Devotions, and CBN.com.

Her favorite subject to write about is the rich relationship God desires to have with us and the deep trust it takes to live it out. She and her husband of 33 years live in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas and they have two daughters and one son-in-law who also reside in the Dallas area. You can read more of her devotions at www.kathycheek.com.

Small Acts of Kindness: Front Porch Friends

By Kathy Cheek

I had finished watering the pots of flowers on my front porch and just sat down in one of the chairs by the small bistro table. A soft breeze carried the scent of flowers across the way and I noticed my neighbor had walked outside and was going to her mailbox for the day’s mail. I called out to her and asked if she wanted to join me sitting on the porch.

Joann walked towards me and said in a half question half statement, “You actually sit on your front porch?”

“Yes, I do.”

She joined me on the porch where we chatted a little while and then she had to leave to check on her mother at the nearby nursing home. It was good to catch up with my neighbor, even if it isn’t as often as we’d like.

Many of our visits are brief encounters as one of us pulls in or out of our driveway or find the other one doing yardwork, or me on my way back from a walk with my hair a mess. I am often a mess when Joann pulls in or out as she catches me sweaty doing yard work or returning from a long walk around the neighborhood.

But this time, we indulged ourselves and sat on my front porch. We weren’t the Waltons in the hills of Virginia with their big inviting front porch where their large family and various neighbors often gathered. Instead, we are – American suburbia… or, Dallas, Texas suburbia to be exact.

Joann travels often with her job and we rarely have time to visit, which means the opportunity to relax on the front porch was a big deal. I could tell she needed this relaxing reprieve more than I did. Travel and tending to her mother who had been back and forth between the nursing home and the hospital had her overextended with no relief in sight. She admitted she had been running on empty the last few weeks with another emergency with her mom.

I couldn’t do anything to change Joann’s hectic work schedule or control any of her mother’s medical emergencies. But I could offer her something that would help. I could offer her a place to relax for just a little while and to leisurely chat with a friend. Yes, Joann is my neighbor. I also consider her my friend—a front porch friend.

Click to tweet: Small Acts of Kindness Sitting on the front porch with friends. #kindnessmatters #kindness

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Kathy Cheek writes faith-filled devotions and is published in LifeWay’s Journey magazine and Mature Living, and also contributes to several devotional sites, including Thoughts About God, Christian Devotions, and CBN.com.

Her favorite subject to write about is the rich relationship God desires to have with us and the deep trust it takes to live it out. She and her husband of 33 years live in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas and they have two daughters and one son-in-law who also reside in the Dallas area. You can read more of her devotions at www.kathycheek.com.

Small Acts of Kindness: The Words of a Friend

By Kathy Cheek

Through the kindness and support of a friend,
I was moved from discouragement to a place of renewed hope.

Anyone who writes knows there are more rejections, more closed doors, more difficult challenges than there are yeses and contracts.

Some of those rejections hurt more than others and sometimes it is hard to get back on the bicycle or horse, so to speak.

It is a lot more fun to share good news with friends and family than the times we are rejected, especially when everyone knows how much you wanted to hear yes. Not, we are declining…

So, recently when I was rejected by an agent and a publisher in the same week, I was feeling pretty down, until I received an email from a friend I would describe as soft spoken.

Well, she wasn’t soft spoken in this email. If you could be loud in an email, she was loud. She was loudly proclaiming her support of my writing and telling me not to give up in such a forceful encouraging way, I was moved from my place of discouragement to a place of renewed hope.

Her uplifting words made a difference and urged me on. She will never know how much her kindness and support meant to me in those days as I read her email over and over—finding the courage in her words to believe there is a plan and I need to keep working.

I want to live up to her challenge and not give up.

I also want to be the friend to others that she was to me, and I hope I can do that with kindness and support—as she did for me.

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Kathy Cheek writes faith-filled devotions and is published in LifeWay’s Journey magazine and Mature Living, and also contributes to several devotional sites, including Thoughts About God, Christian Devotions, and CBN.com.

Her favorite subject to write about is the rich relationship God desires to have with us and the deep trust it takes to live it out. She and her husband of 33 years live in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas and they have two daughters and one son-in-law who also reside in the Dallas area. You can read more of her devotions at www.kathycheek.com.

Small Acts of Kindness: Love Your Neighbor

By Kathy Cheek

Jesus said to him,“ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’   ~ Matthew 22:37-39 NKJV

I learned a valuable lesson about being sensitive to the needs of lonely people while watching my husband one evening when a stranger walked into our yard. I was watering flowers on our front porch and Randy was doing yard work when an elderly woman he didn’t know or recognize from our neighborhood, approached him and asked if we had seen her missing cat. After my husband informed her we hadn’t seen the cat she described, the woman eagerly continued to speak with him, and kept talking for a very long time.

She told him she had been widowed eight years ago, and spoke of the life she shared with her husband that spanned half a century. She smiled and told of courting days, raising their family, and moving away from everyone she knew back east to follow his dream to live in the west. She told stories of their early years together and how they had weathered many storms together, but the storm she was weathering now was missing him.

She was lonely and God provided a listening ear. My husband stood there and patiently listened, although the mosquitoes were out and the sky was darkening and he wasn’t finished with his work. But he listened, and he could tell by her changed countenance that she walked back to her house with a lighter step and lighter heart.

Loving our neighbor as Jesus teaches should keep us attentive to the heavy hearts around us that are burdened by a depth of loneliness that we can help ease. Sometimes, all we have to do is provide a listening ear. All we have to do is care.

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Kathy Cheek writes faith-filled devotions and is published in LifeWay’s Journey magazine and Mature Living, and also contributes to several devotional sites, including Thoughts About God, Christian Devotions, and CBN.com.

Her favorite subject to write about is the rich relationship God desires to have with us and the deep trust it takes to live it out. She and her husband of 33 years live in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas and they have two daughters and one son-in-law who also reside in the Dallas area. You can read more of her devotions at www.kathycheek.com.