Kindness is one of those sentiments that feels very warm and fuzzy in our brains. In action, it is more complex and beautiful. Think of a diamond: multifaceted, each surface reflecting and\u00a0refracting dazzling\u00a0rainbows of light, but a diamond is hard. A diamond can cut.<\/p>\n
My husband and I have\u00a0discussed\u00a0how honored we’d feel if one of our friends called us for help in the middle of the night. The downside? We would have to get up in the middle of the night!<\/p>\n
There is honor; there\u2019s also discomfort.<\/p>\n
I was called\u00a0not long ago\u00a0(not in the middle of the night thankfully!),\u00a0but\u00a0in the middle of a\u00a0busy day. My friend asked if I could watch her child while she took her husband to the doctor.\u00a0No big deal right? Well, no \u2014 not really. Except that if I’m honest, I would\u00a0admit that\u00a0throughout the course of my days I often feel like I’m barely holding my head above water. This sudden interruption wasn’t in my plan. It threw me off, but\u00a0I\u00a0said yes<\/em>. I considered this instance to be my \u201cmiddle of the night\u201d call and I was honored<\/em>.<\/p>\n This was a transaction of kindness. It was far deeper than her asking for help and me answering the call. It was an act of\u00a0vulnerability\u00a0and strength \u2014 and maybe temporary discomfort\u00a0on both\u00a0sides. She\u00a0was brave enough to ask for help and admit that she had a need.<\/p>\n She needed me<\/strong> and<\/strong> I needed her<\/strong>.<\/p>\n I had to be vulnerable as well. I had to lay down my plans, create space and change. Interestingly, her request also made me braver. I suddenly realized that I too could ask for help.<\/p>\n From the mix of\u00a0vulnerability\u00a0and\u00a0strength, bravery and\u00a0neediness, a bond was created. A cord of\u00a0kindness. It wasn’t\u00a0just\u00a0one person meeting another’s needs, it was more like a tapestry.<\/p>\n When thousands of these types of transactions take place over time\u00a0within a community, it is weaving a rich and beautiful tapestry of kindness. A safety net, strong and secure.\u00a0Nothing we could ever conceive of, much less\u00a0accomplish,\u00a0on our own.<\/p>\n These things don’t just happen among people who are confident in their “enough-ness.” These things happen among people who are willing to admit weakness. A diamond doesn’t just spring from the earth fully formed. The earth must be opened, the depths must be plumbed.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n When we are not enough,\u00a0the kindness of others can meet our lack with abundance \u2014 but first must come the\u00a0uncomfortable\u00a0part of admitting, asking for help and sharing the load.\u00a0Simultaneously,\u00a0the very admission that we are not enough can be\u00a0an act of kindness in itself. It’s an invitation for each person in the community to let her walls down. It’s an encouragement to fill and be filled.<\/p>\n It’s\u00a0a declaration: I’m with you. We need each other.<\/p>\n I am not enough, but WE are more than enough together.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Leslie lives with her husband and three children just outside the Texas Hill Country. She likes to read, write, exercise and sleep.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kindness is one of those sentiments that feels very warm and fuzzy in our brains. In action, it is more complex and beautiful. Think of a diamond: multifaceted, each surface reflecting and\u00a0refracting dazzling\u00a0rainbows of light, but a diamond is hard. A diamond can cut. My husband and I have\u00a0discussed\u00a0how honored we’d feel if one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[758,759,760,761,687,762,549,40,717,763,764,765,766,433,767,768,769,50,770,272],"class_list":["post-4280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","tag-action","tag-admit","tag-another","tag-ask","tag-beautiful","tag-bond","tag-brave","tag-community","tag-complex","tag-cord","tag-diamond","tag-friend","tag-help","tag-kindness","tag-need","tag-needs","tag-sentiments","tag-strength","tag-tapestry","tag-vulnerability"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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