“Kindness begins with the understanding that we all struggle.” Charles Glassman

A friend gave her testimony this morning at our women’s breakfast at church. She’s from Brazil, so her accent and way with words is a little different from what we’re used to here in the South. The part of her talk that I shared below impacted me because of the way she worded it.  

She talked about her hardships, the ones that brought her closer to Jesus. She said she knew every woman in the room had been through hardships too. We all have a story, she said. Here’s the part that stood out.  

“We don’t know easy.”  

Something about the way she said it sounded so relatable. And she’s right, none of us knows easy. 

My friend comes to mind who lost her husband to Covid-19. I loved their photos of them traveling around the country to see Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood. 

And my friend who lost her two adult children. 

And another who’s going through an unfair separation from her young daughter and son. 

Sometimes I diminished my own struggles by comparing them to someone else’s. We don’t need to do that because like my friend Betty said, “Pain is pain.”

We don’t know easy.  

When we handle our own and each other’s struggles with kindness, though, we’re the hands and feet of Jesus for hurting family and friends. We’re the compassion we forget about sometimes, but need ourselves. 

We’re the ones who help each other “know easy” for a little while. 

These two books offered hope during an especially difficult time – Springs in the Valley by L. B. Cowman and Streams in the Desert by the same author. Each day’s devotional reading (all 365 of them) is full of encouragement, insight, and inspiration into why God allows suffering and how He uses it to bring us to Him and to our purpose. 

I hope you’re encouraged that we don’t have to struggle alone. We’re … 

In This Together, 
Kim

Thank you, Bruna, for a touching testimony.

Thank you, Pixabay.com, for the perfect image.