Kindness.

I found this letter on Pinterest and I thought it was worth sharing.  Glennon wrote this letter to her son and shared it on her website.

Dear Chase,

Hey, baby.

Tomorrow is a big day. Third Grade – wow.

 Chase – When I was in third grade, there was a little boy in my class named Adam.

Adam looked a little different and he wore funny clothes and sometimes he even smelled a little bit. Adam didn’t smile. He hung his head low and he never looked at anyone at all. Adam never did his homework. I don’t think his parents reminded him like yours do. The other kids teased Adam a lot. Whenever they did, his head hung lower and lower and lower. I never teased him, but I never told the other kids to stop, either.

And I never talked to Adam, not once. I never invited him to sit next to me at lunch, or to play with me at recess. Instead, he sat and played by himself. He must have been very lonely.

I still think about Adam every day. I wonder if Adam remembers me? Probably not. I bet if I’d asked him to play, just once, he’d still remember me.

 I think that God puts people in our lives as gifts to us. The children in your class this year, they are some of God’s gifts to you.

So please treat each one like a gift from God. Every single one.

Baby, if you see a child being left out, or hurt, or teased, a part of your heart will hurt a little. Your daddy and I want you to trust that heart- ache. Your whole life, we want you to notice and trust your heart-ache. That heart ache is called compassion, and it is God’s signal to you to do something. It is God saying, Chase! Wake up! One of my babies is hurting! Do something to help! Whenever you feel compassion – be thrilled! It means God is speaking to you, and that is magic. It means He trusts you and needs you.

Sometimes the magic of compassion will make you step into the middle of a bad situation right away.

Compassion might lead you to tell a teaser to stop it and then ask the teased kid to play. You might invite a left-out kid to sit next to you at lunch. You might choose a kid for your team first who usually gets chosen last. These things will be hard to do, but you can do hard things.

Sometimes you will feel compassion but you won’t step in right away. That’s okay, too. You might choose instead to tell your teacher and then tell us. We are on your team – we are on your whole class’s team. Asking for help for someone who is hurting is not tattling, it is doing the right thing. If someone in your class needs help, please tell me, baby. We will make a plan to help together.

When God speaks to you by making your heart hurt for another, by giving you compassion, just do something. Please do not ignore God whispering to you. I so wish I had not ignored God when He spoke to me about Adam. I remember Him trying, I remember feeling compassion, but I chose fear over compassion. I wish I hadn’t. Adam could have used a friend and I could have, too.

Chase – We do not care if you are the smartest or fastest or coolest or funniest. There will be lots of contests at school, and we don’t care if you win a single one of them. We don’t care if you get straight As. We don’t care if the girls think you’re cute or whether you’re picked first or last for kickball at recess. We don’t care if you are your teacher’s favorite or not. We don’t care if you have the best clothes or most Pokemon cards or coolest gadgets. We just don’t care.

We don’t send you to school to become the best at anything at all. We already love you as much as we possibly could. You do not have to earn our love or pride and you can’t lose it. That’s done.

We send you to school to practice being brave and kind.

Kind people are brave people. Brave is not a feeling that you should wait for. It is a decision. It is a decision that compassion is more important than fear, than fitting in, than following the crowd.

Trust me, baby, it is. It is more important.

Don’t try to be the best this year, honey.

Just be grateful and kind and brave. That’s all you ever need to be.

Take care of those classmates of yours, and your teacher, too. You Belong to Each Other. You are one lucky boy . . . with all of these new gifts to unwrap this year.

I love you so much that my heart might explode.

Enjoy and cherish your gifts.

And thank you for being my favorite gift of all time.

Love,

Mama

People, kids especially, can be so cruel.  I want my children to know that no matter what anyone else thinks about them, they are perfect in my eyes and  His eyes. I know that every one makes mistakes. I have. Still do. I have talked about people.  And, I have had people talk about me.  In high school some of my dearest friends spread rumors that I slept with the entire football team to try to win homecoming queen. 

You know what the best part of being married to your best friend is?  Acceptance.  Luke knows everything about me. He has heard  the rumors and he knows the truths. He has seen me angry, hurt, and broken. He has seen me at my best and my worst. He knows what my intentions are and what is in my heart.  He loves all of it.  He accepts the good AND the bad. And, I accept him just the way he is. I pray that my children are as lucky as I am. I pray that they find someone who loves them and supports them unconditionally. More importantly, I want them to know that their dad and I will always love them.  NO MATTER WHAT. They mean absolutely everything to us. 

I could relate to Glennon's letter because I once reached out to a new student. In jr. high, we had a new kid move to town. He seemed lonely.  I decided I wanted to be his friend. His name was Ben. Guess what?  He became one of my very best friends.  When those girls were being mean to me, he was there for me. When I had boyfriend troubles, he was there for me.  We are still friends to this day.  He married a beautiful girl and is coaching college football! He has told me over and over that I was the only person that was nice to him when he started at our school. That made me sad. He is an amazing person and an awesome friend. Who wouldn't want to be nice to him? Luke encouraged Kinnison to find someone that was alone at recess and to invite them to play with her.  She did it and she ended up playing with that girl almost every day at recess. I was surprised when Luke asked her to do this, then it occurred to me that he moved a lot as a kid. He was the new kid. And, it doesn't apply to only new kids. Kids are picked on and left out for no reason at all.  I want to teach my children to be kind to everyone and how to cope when others aren't kind to them.  

I read in the news today that an eighth grader in Oklahoma shot himself at school. Perhaps if someone had taken the time to reach out to him it could have been avoided? Tragic. I can't even imagine what his parents are going through. 

I am going to share Glennon's letter with my children and share my own story with them as well.