“The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.” Psalm 145:8
Recently my daughter and I had finished some shopping for back to school supplies at Wal-Mart. We wheeled our cart holding our purchases out to the car and put the bags in the trunk. I returned the cart to the “cart corral” and proceeded to head back to the car when Hannah pointed out that there were some carts that people had left out instead of returning them. I voiced my opinion that unreturned carts were one of my biggest pet peeves and opened the driver’s side car door. Hannah agreed with me and then asked if we could return them. It took me a moment to understand what she was suggesting. To be honest, I was wrapped up in my own frustration with people who leave the shopping carts out and it wouldn’t have dawned on me to return the carts myself. But Hannah sought to fix the problem.
We did as she suggested and then headed home. We talked about how we both felt that carts left out could damage cars and that it didn’t take much effort to return them.
What struck me was that Hannah and I both had the same concern for people’s vehicles, but I only focused on my irritation – she chose to look for a solution. And in looking for a solution, she stumbled onto kindness.
All of us want to be kind in life, but sometimes we aren’t looking in the right direction. If we only focus on our frustrations or anger – we will miss opportunities. If we look beyond those irritations to solving problems, we might just find possibilities for showing kindness. When we change our attitude to be more like Christ, we can be rich in love. I am going to strive to follow the example of Christ (and my daughter) and put aside my frustrations to look for opportunities to share God’s loving kindness.
Rev. Wendy Lambert, Senior Executive Pastor
