Weekend Kindness
Reaching Others Through Kindness

Thank you for visiting Weekend Kindness-- the blog that helps you build positive relationships! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so that you don't miss a single post from one of our great authors!

Karl and I are working on our tenth year of marriage, but we’ve known one another for fifteen years. We still love to spend time together alone, but sometimes it’s hard to find something different to talk about. There are the usual topics like the kids, school, and work, but those are a far cry from the topics discussed over our romantic dinners together 1999BK (Before Kids).

After building a home and family together, there just isn’t much left to our imaginations when it comes to knowing one another. There are no secrets, no real mysteries anymore. We can finish one another’s sentences and know what the other is thinking just by a look. We have enough history and “inside” lingo between us that we can carry on entire conversations with one another that no one else is able to comprehend. While this is very sweet in some respects, it doesn’t help when we don’t already have something to talk about.

Last weekend, my sweet man treated me to dinner at a very nice, family-owned Italian restaurant. As we sat opposite one another, we made small talk about the furnishings and the menu. After we placed our drink orders with the server, we stared at one another for a few moments before Karl asked, “What do you want to talk about?”

“All I know for certain is that I don’t want to talk about our children,” I replied.

After all, we had asked the in-laws to take the kids for a few hours so that we could have some time together without them. Why would I want to spend my first peaceful dinner of the week talking about them?

Karl asked my thoughts on a couple of co-worker related issues and then said, “OK. I have an idea for our dinner conversation…We can’t possibly know everything there is to know about one another, so let’s take turns sharing things that we think the other doesn’t already know. You go first.”

I had to think for a few seconds, but by the time we ordered our meal, I had thought of at least two things to share. We took turns sharing “new” details of our lives. It was so much fun we continued throughout our evening together.

Though I’ve known him for half of my life now, there are so many things I have yet to learn about this wonderful man I married. I thought I knew everything about him, but I was reminded that he has a history, dreams and desires, and hopes that I have yet to discover. Not only did I learn some things, he listened and discovered some new details about me. It is such a blessing to have a spouse who is still interested in getting to know me.

Being married to the same person for the rest of my life will be far from boring!

Spend some time this week getting to know your spouse a little better. You may be reminded of how much you really enjoy being together and how much you actually like one other. You’ll definitely be surprised by how much you have yet to discover.

Here’s a project for you to do this weekend.  No, it’s nothing like cleaning out someone’s car, cleaning out the toilet, or even changing a dirty diaper.

This weekend, try declaring your love to your spouse.  But don’t just say “I love you– pass the chips.”  No, go the extra mile:

Pledge your love for a lifetime. Write it on calligraphy or design it on a desktop computer and print it out on parchment paper and have it framed.

Wow.  What a statement that would make to both your family, friends and those that would come into your home.

You can both sign it, you could use it as a way to celebrate an anniversary, or you can do it this weekend as a testament to your commitment to each other.

Come one come all and add your submissions to the Standing in the Gap Carnival to be hosted here at Weekend Kindness on July 20, 2007.

That’s right, I’m hosting the Standing in the Gap carnival as a way to be kind and show kindness. Do you have someone that’s running a carnival and they need someone to host? Perhaps someone you know is running a carnival and they need submissions.

Carnivals are great ways to read posts from sources you don’t normally frequent on a topic of interest. It’s also a great time to get your posts seen by others.

So, get some submissions going, and submit them to the Standing in the Gap Carnival!

So, a funny thing happened on the way back from my brother’s wedding. I was driving along after a fierce thunderstorm when I came upon a toll booth. It was one where you insert change into a bucket or use a coin changer. The car in front of me opens the door to pay with cash and I see something fall out of it. I thought it was a flip flop.

As I advance into the toll booth, I open the door, and sure enough it was the man’s wallet. What do I do?!

I hand the wallet back to my wife and take off after the guy. (Fortunately he was going the same way I was!) We lose him around a corner, but I’m pretty sure that I recognize his car up ahead. I catch up and go to pass him and my wife compares the picture on his license to the guy in the car. We roll down the window, beep the horn, and get him to pull over.

I get out, return the wallet, and am on my way.

What would you have done?

One day in the store I noticed that you can buy all kinds of post-it notes.  One set of post-it notes was pink and in the shape of a heart.  That gave me an idea.  I picked up a pack, and hid them for future use.

The next time that my wife was away, I wrote messages on the hearts and hid them in various locations throughout the house.  Some easy to find, some not so easy.  That way, when she came home, and for days after that, as she found the notes she could be reminded of the fact that I was thinking of her.

Has she found them all?  Not yet.  I believe there’s still one that she hasn’t found!

You can try this at home, and you don’t even need sticky notes– even a piece of paper and scotch tape will do!

Actions speak louder than words goes the familiar expression. One of the problems with our lifestyles today is that we have many more things wanting our attention and time than in the past. So, there are things that we say we will do with all intentions of doing them, but it takes a long time to get to them– or we forget totally.

So, one way to show kindness this week is to choose and complete a project that you’ve been putting off, something that someone else will appreciate (like sewing a button on, or mending jeans…etc). By doing this you’ll be showing that person that they are important, and you’ll be getting to fulfill your promise to them all at the same time!

One of the most popular posts read on MInTheGap has to do with the question “What to say when someone dies“. I believe that this is because this is one of the most difficult times in anyone’s life, facing the loss of a loved one.

I was once seated on an airplane on the way back from college next to someone that was on their way home for a funeral. It was difficult for me to be of comfort because I believe that if someone dies without accepting Jesus Christ as Savior then the person is destined for eternal separation from God.

Regardless, it was difficult to know what to say because the loss to this woman was very real. The same loss that I felt (if different in quantity) when I lost my grandfather last year. You miss the person, what they did, who they were and there’s a hole that is not easily filled.

This past weekend, our neighbors lost their oldest male patriarch. It started with the ambulance and fire truck whizzing by (someone must have called 911). It was too late– we later found out that the man had died in his son’s arms.

We could have pretended not to see what had happened. But, spurned on by the sermon about being a Good Samaritan, and looking for ways to minister, my wife has offered and will be making a meal for them.

How about you? Do you have someone that you know that has recently lost a loved one? How about a widow or widower? Someone that may be missing someone in their lives within the past year?

Why not be a source of encouragement this week and send them a card, offer to make them a meal, schedule some time to sit down and talk, say a little prayer for them, or all of the above. We need to be there for those that lose loved ones– we need to give the comfort that we have received in our time of loss.