Be Ye Kind

A couple of months ago, as I was praying to know what I should be working on now -- or in other words, "what lack I yet?" -- a swift answer came to my mind telling me to be kind.  Following on the heels of my previous answer to that question, which was to love one another, I was really struck by how seamlessly those two virtues go hand in hand.  Love and Kindness.  I think, in general, I'm a loving and kind person.  But, as I prayed and pondered about this message to "be kind," I realized that I'm not always very good at showing kindness to my children.  More often than not these days, I find myself fussing at and getting aggravated by the kids and their misbehavior, when perhaps a little kindness would go a long way in bringing about the kind of change I am hoping to see.

So, this year for Scripture Time, I decided to go with the theme of "Love and Kindness" in searching for our monthly verses.  For February, I went with an oldie but a goodie -- Ephesians 4:32 (and seriously, I think we've used this verse for Scripture Time at least a half dozen times over the last several years):

"And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you."

For Family Home Evening this week, I came up with the perfect way to get all the kids on board with focusing on kindness this month -- a Random Acts of Kindness project to coincide with our annual 5 Days of Valentine celebration!  Yay!!!  Hahaha.  In all honesty, I came up with a bunch of the ideas while flying by the seat of my pants during my lesson on Monday, but I had done enough Pinterest searching beforehand to present some ideas to the kids that got them excited and on board with the plan.  {Mostly.} 

With today being the first day of Valentine plus a Friday night, our first Random Act of Kindness effort was to tape packs of microwave popcorn to a couple different Redbox locations along with a little card.  The younger ones were super excited about the outing.   The older ones?  Not so much.  Hahaha.  Ethan and Grace humored me and came along for the ride, even though they assured me that they thought this was SUPER weird.  Jane and Sophie were the only ones to actually get out of the car and help me tape things to the movie dispenser, while Alex waited nervously inside and Isaac cried because I wouldn't get him out, too.  I thought it was fun regardless of the party poopers, and Alex and I were super excited later this evening when we drove home from the Mother-Son Sock Hop at the school and noticed that almost all the bags had been taken from our Walgreens Redbox, and ALL of them were gone from the one at Kroger. :)

Hopefully, the ideas planned for the next four days will have a higher rate of enthusiasm than this one did.  ;)  Hahaha.