What happened to kindness?

Kindness. It's a lost virtue in our sporadic, fussy society. The mindset that goes around commonly every day is "I'm entitled to being treated a certain way, served a certain way, on my schedule, to fit my needs."

Today at the hair salon was no different. I walked into an already intense dialogue between a client and stylist. A simple mistake of being double-booked, which no one likes, turned into an excuse to give a speech on why she was entitled to her appointment that second. Despite the attempts to solve the problem by the stylist, the client stormed out, blasting out words that left the atmosphere cold. The stylist stood there in tears, and those in the salon were silent in shock.

What happened to kindness? Sure, its pretty inconvenient to reschedule a hair appointment. And everyone can relate to experiencing inconveniences at airports. Traveling full-time means this comes with the territory. But surely disagreements can be sorted out in a more respectful manner, can't they?

Gone are the good ol' days when strangers would chat on the bus about random things, and people would smile at each other when passing on the sidewalk. I don't think I was born yet when those good ol' days were in their prime. Kindness was not just a learned virtue, it was actually practiced and disrespecting someone was not acceptable.

Where does kindness come from? Titus 3:4 says, "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy."

Kindness is an attribute of God, and when we're kind to people, we're like God.

Knowing you've been shown the greatest expression of kindness through the salvation of our souls, gives us a reason to be kind to people.

When we first started the band, I was in my freshman year of high school. Peers were not expectant of you to be kind to your parents, and not much has changed. It's much cooler to be independent and do what you want. Some of that had rubbed off on my 14-year-old mind. I am ashamed to admit it. One day our drummer called me out on it. It wasn't long into the conversation before my heart completely broke. I realized even in front of my friends I had been slacking in my respect and kindness toward my parents. I immediately asked God to forgive me. I'm thankful my friend was bold enough to confront me in a gracious way and remind me of how important kindness is.

We have been shown generous grace and kindness by God, who saved an unkind people, so He could make us into the image of His Son! Let's not forget to extend that kindness to others, even in the inconvenience of life.

-Becca