“If patience is how love reacts in order to minimize  a negative circumstance, kindness is how love acts to maximize a positive circumstance. Patience avoids a problem. Kindness creates a blessing. Kindness thinks ahead then takes the FIRST step. When operating from kindness you are careful how you treat your spouse (loved one)…even if you need to say hard things. Helpfulness means you meet the needs of the moment. Willingness – kindness inspires you to be agreeable.” (Kendrick, The Love Dare)

Active Love Today –

Continue from yesterday in making sure you say nothing negative. Add to that the action of doing one unexpected gesture as an act of kindness. pg. 7

Let’s go beyond an act of kindness that is EASY. Do something grand. Make a memory with your loved one today. Do something he/she will never forget, something they might write on a note and stick in their Bible, will tell the grandkids, will tell everyone about you when you pass away someday. Make today the day you take the first step of being extraordinary…loving like Christ. Dying to self. Why not fill the heart of another person with amazing love? God filled yours, let it pour into them.

If you haven’t read Redeeming Love, a fictional story based on Hosea and Gomer in the Bible, then read it. Men, you too! I know a doctor that said it changed his life. This book…based on Biblical example…is the kind of love men are to have for women. Men, women are a gift for you from God. After God made Adam, He said that it wasn’t good for man to be alone, therefore He created Eve for Adam. Think about that. When you have something you treasure, how do you treat it? You take extra special care to preserve it for your whole life and to leave it to your kids. The greatest gift you will leave for your children is to teach them God’s love, and the best way you do that is by showing them how to love your spouse the way God loves you. It is possible to have enduring, lasting, beautiful love. You just have to accept the gift and cherish it. From Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers:

“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32)

“Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart” (Proverbs 3:3).

Take the first step today. Do something kind. Do something kind and amazing! Do something today that will be written on the tablet of your hearts!

Go love!

Kim Crawford

revised 2.2.18

6.29.14