The Law of Kindness

Today hit a few rough patches. We were redecorating my Littlest Guy's room. We have spent hours patching walls, painting, painting again, and moving furniture. This "little" project has taken us far too long because of our crazy busy schedule lately. My Little Guy has been as patient as can be. As a mom I was proud of his long-suffering with us, knowing how excited he was, yet he did not nag or complain.

We were on a field trip on Monday with some very dear friends. We learned survival information for the Bayou. It was good information to know. I have no desire to become gator bait or worse yet, actually have to eat one! I now know of several edible plants around us if I ever have the unfortunate experience of getting stranded in the Bayou. : ) Sorry, I digress...back to the redecorating...

While the boys and I were away, my sweet hubby used his Monday off to not only wash and wax his car, cut the grass, run errands, and get parts to fix my bathtub; he also, bought more paint to finish the bedroom makeover. As we arrived home late that evening, he was putting the curtains and blinds back up in the window. Yesterday we were away all day, so this morning brought us our first opportunity to finish up the room.

After days of waiting patiently, I could not look my little blue-eyed Cowboy in the eyes and refuse his plea to "finish his room." We were having a great time until I took out the cute western looking vinyl "stickers" for the walls.

It began with our dismay to find that someone had used all but 22 of them and repackaged them and returned them to the store. Had they not been purchased "quite" some time ago, I too would return them! That was disappointing.

Then we moved onto actual placement of the stickers. Let's just say, that for this decorating-challenged Mom, they were too much!!! I became so frustrated at trying to get the cactus scene to line up correctly, all-the-while calmly trying to explain to my extremely focused (read: stubborn) Blessing that "No, it really did not look nice going diagonally across the wall.", that at some point (which was after my big Blessing came in to help)  I forgot the words of Proverbs 31:26: "She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness." For a span of a few moments I am not sure there was any wisdom and not much kindness coming out of my mouth. In fact, after hearing myself ask one of my Helpers to "PLEASE get OFF of the bed and LOOK to see if this is STRAIGHT!!!", I just closed my mouth so nothing came out at all. : ( At that moment I heard my Mom and Sister in my head saying, "Use the Law of Kindness."

Growing up, the Law of Kindness, was a scale by which we often measured our speech. Many times we girls would remind each other to watch our speech. I may not have been as thankful for those reminders at the time they were given, but I am very thankful now. Exercising self-control over the tongue is such a challenging thing sometimes. I find, for me, it is not always what I say that is unkind, but rather the way I say it. Far too often a curt and impatient sounding tone overshadows whatever words are being said.

Today, sitting on the bed, with a sore neck and arm from trying to accurately place those "easy-to-use" stickers, I had to silence my unkind tongue, ask for forgiveness from my boys, and try again. This battle with our tongues is not a one-time-only thing, it is daily! Today, I am choosing wisdom and kindness. How about you? How do your practice the Law of Kindness in your home?