Look for Kindness

I perch on a bar stool at our counter-height table, Facebook scrolling over the screen of my iPhone. I’m breaking an unspoken rule I gave myself to avoid Facebook on the Sabbath. Not because the Spirit hasn’t prompted me to post things on Sunday, He has, but because most of the time Facebook isn’t so much about sharing something spiritual, as mindlessly occupying my otherwise anxious mind.

My anxiety needs outlets, something other than my life to worry over. Before Facebook I made up stories. Since I’ve called myself an author that’s changed. I reach for escape and instead of my place of refuge—my story world—I find a wall of worry. Is this the right plot choice here? Is that really what that character would do?

So I’m latching onto Facebook.

But what I want to be an escape from worry this morning is the opposite. The screen plays stories I’d never thought to write. Horrible things. Angry things. Selfish, frivolous things.

Until what I really want is reassurance.

I want to know that love is still real. That the world isn’t falling apart around me. That my babies will grow up safe and hopeful. I want to know that I’m worth something, even here, in my grubby t-shirt and yoga shorts, doing the very thing I told myself I wouldn’t do today.

I’ve gotten off to a real bad start this morning.

It’s the tiny posts: a quote from a prophet, a scripture, an honest, heartfelt status update. Blips. My mind shifts and God reenters.

I open up my scriptures in another app and try to focus. I pray silently, right there, my head hunched over the table while my daughter pecks at breakfast and my husband strides through with his suit-coat and shoes in one hand.

Words come. My own, maybe. A thought drifting through my head.

Look for kindness. Look for joy.

Is that what I’m supposed to do?

I don’t know where to look. Not on Facebook. In that sea, there is kindness, I know it. But today is worse than usual. Something happened. Something big and evil. And it’s all over Facebook. Plastered.

Tell me where to look for good.

A prompting? Most likely. I open up my photos.

Look for kindness. Look for joy.

Yesterday, we went to the river with extended family we hadn’t seen in a long time. The kids wanted to get in and one cousin, a twelve-year-old girl, took my two-year-old daughter’s hand and waded with her into the water. I caught the moment on screen, but profoundly enough, the gesture is hidden by the foliage of the trees.

You have to look to see it.

My daughter climbs on my lap to see the photos. I flick through them, but soon go back to that one. It's like I've emerged from deep water and taken my first full breath of the day.

I cannot change the world. I cannot fix the things that are falling apart, or unfair, or bad. I cannot take the hurt away.

But here in my own little world, God is still at work. He’s in my niece's hands. He’s in my toddler’s insatiable chatter. He’s in my husband, off to church before the rest of us, calling goodbye from the doorway.

He is at this table, in this room.

A perfectly ripe nectarine for breakfast. A smile from my son. A tiny post of something good. A scripture. A prayer.

An answer. 

Look for kindness. Look for joy.