Sometimes children are the best teachers. Last week my five-year-old granddaughter, Ava, came over to bake Christmas cookies. After we’d finished, Ava said, “Grandmama, will you come up to the toy room and play with me?” She took me by the hand, and we walked up the stairs to the room my husband and I have stocked with toys and games.
“Come see how I’ve arranged the stuffed animals,” she said. She’d placed them on the rocking chair and on the floor around it. Then she said the words that stuck in my heart, “They’ve been trained to be kind, to love and to give hugs.”
Oh, baby girl, there’s such wisdom in those words. I couldn’t help but wonder how different our world would be if more of us were trained to be kind, to love and to give hugs.
Read More: From Dr. Norman Vincent Peale–Rule Your Spirit
I was reminded of that lesson about kindness recently while I was in Memphis to be part of the taping of a Christmas show. Gospel musician and Grammy winner Jason Crabb was one of the performers. When I was introduced to him, I got a warm greeting, a hug and a kiss on the cheek. And I wasn’t the only one. As I watched him throughout the day at sound checks, dinner, and before, during, and after the show, his kindness—his realness—shone through.
It didn’t matter if he was meeting the millionaire businessman who was there for the evening, the film crew or the tiny senior citizen lady who wanted to talk to him, each was greeted with a hug, a kind word and the love that Jesus talked about.
After we finished the taping, I stopped at Jason’s merchandise table as the crowd was winding down so I could give him a hug and tell him what a joy it had been to meet him. He said, “Do you have all my stuff?” Turning to his team members he said, “Get her all my stuff.” They started piling things in bags.
When I got back to the hotel that night, I discovered all of Jason’s CDs, his five children’s books, and his Jase the Crab stuffed animal. It was a lovely gift, but the true gift was the example Jason had shown that night—of what we can become when we allow God to train us to be kind, to love and to give hugs.
And I think that’s a great example for all of us to take into the New Year.
