Be Kind or Be Quiet

 

Do you know what its like to be picked last or left out all together....just because you are DIFFERENT????

 

Well I still have an involuntary twitch any time there is even a slight reference to dodge ball, four square or nation ball (do they even play that in Canada?).... It's those flash backs to those class rooms of my elementary years in California and being lined up against the chalkboard, while the two most popular kids pick teams....I ended up on a team out of mathematical default....with the usually "Well Robin, I guess you are the B team"....

 

Beyond helpful for ones budding self esteem?!

 

 

Between cerebral palsy, my GIANT corrective shoes and glasses and that dear mother of mine's issues with providing us with clean laundry and properly fitting clothes...well...can anyone say TARGET?! (and I don't mean the retailer)

 

I was tormented (and so was my sister). Bullied before they made t shirts for it....

 

I was even screamed at and punished by my fourth grade teacher because my wheelchair (I spent most of that year in non walking casts and a chair after corrective surgery) was in the WAY and shouldn't be allowed in a "normal" classroom...

 

good times.

 

I was different...I knew it and there was very little, to nothing I could to change it at the time....

 

But it didn't make me bitter...

 

It made me funny and more importantly, it made me very aware of the power of kindness.....

 

 

 

 

 

Sadly I watched someone recently excluded another....

The exclusion because someone was different...

That difference was not the excluded's fault, nor did the excluded have any power to really change the difference...

Even bringing the difference to the excluded's attention had the power to humiliate and harm further....

 

When questioned the excluder only became bolder in their justification of their exclusion.....

 

It made my heart SAD.

 

They didn't understand the power of kindness that being beaned in the head with a dodgeball had taught me...

 

 

 

 

There always seems to be need to justify our exclusion, mistreatment or judgement of others...

 

Have you ever had to justify your desire to...

Include, Love, and

Understand another?

 

Kindness needs no justifacation.

It's just the right thing to do.

 

Kindness isn't about our comfort it is about giving comfort to another.

 

When our Saviour walked this earth, Did he exclude, ignore or turn away from those who were different???

No, He searched them out and showed love, healing and kindness...

 

SO...

 

Please be KIND...

There are more last picked underdogs like me, than you think.