The words Kindness and Grace keep popping up, over and over, in my reading and podcast listening. Most of us understand that we need to show kindness and grace to others, especially now in this pandemic life, in the turmoil of political and racial division. The context of kindness and grace that keeps showing up refers not to others but ourselves. Do we express it to ourselves?
Are we taking care of our hearts the way we take care of others? Just as we care for our physical bodies and our mental well-being, we should consider the care of our hearts. When referring to our hearts, we are talking about “the little bit inside of us that makes us, us.” as Kate Jane Neal says in the book Words and Your Heart.
Why is it important to show ourselves kindness and grace? Why is it important to tend to our hearts? When you travel on an airplane, the flight attendant instructs you in an emergency, to put on your oxygen mask before assisting others. If you can not breathe because of a lack of oxygen, you cannot help anyone else. The same holds true when it comes to how we treat and care for our hearts. Michael Hyatt says, “If our heart is unhealthy, it threatens everything else – family, friends, career – everything!”
There is a trend in talking about the importance of self-care, rest, exercise, healthy eating habits. When we look at self-care or self-improvement, we often try to change our outward habits, to do what we know we should do. We follow plans and create rhymes for a healthier version of ourselves. Yet, in doing so, we also can make this unachievable expectation. We are leaving ourselves with little or no grace and untended hearts. We focus on working from the outside because, honestly, it is what people see and what seems more comfortable to check off.
What if we looked at love, kindness, and grace first towards our hearts. Then allow it to flow out from there for others? Not in a selfish me-first kind of way. Rather like placing on our oxygen mask first, so we are better equipped to help others. A verse in Proverbs says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23) Keeping your heart with all vigilance means that we actively look out and care for our hearts. And it is out of our hearts that our real character, true self flows.
Keep your heart with all vigilance,
Proverbs 4:23
for from it flow the springs of life.
Understand there is a difference between guarding one’s heart and being guarded. We do not want to push others away and start operating from a mode of self-protection. The intent is to use wisdom and intentionality to what we allow to make itself at home in our hearts. Rather than rushing through or neglecting hurt feelings, we healthily process them. John Eldredge says, “the way you treat your own heart is the way you’ll end up treating everyone else’s.” If we are not being kind and tending our hearts, then eventually, the outward facade of our good works and kindness will grow weary and wear away. We will be left exhausted and angry for the kindness that has not been repaid. Real change that lasts has to start from the inside out—learning to show kindness to ourselves, accepting the grace that has already been given, and tending our hearts, not in a selfish way but in a way that allows us to pour out kindness to others.
If we are not being kind and tending our hearts, then eventually, the outward facade of our good works and kindness will grow weary and wear away. We will be left exhausted and angry for the kindness that has not been repaid.
As we create rhymes in our lives, let’s make sure that we create them with kindness towards ourselves and our hearts. The healthier we are spiritually, physically, and emotionally the better equipped we are to help others. Our lives flow out of what is in our hearts. Love, Fear, Kindness, Compassion……it starts with ourselves first and flows out to others.
Our lives flow out of what is in our hearts.
May it be kindness and love and compassion that flows.
