The Struggle is Real

We all strive to live lives marked by love. We want to bring love and kindness into every interaction we have with people. We long to live The Life of Love, not a life filled with sin, but the struggle is real. We struggle with being patient and kind when people are getting on our nerves. We don’t want to forgive others when they wrong us. We aim to live lives marked by compassion, kindness and discipline but in reality our lives are marked by a bad temper, irritability and meanness.

We will never be perfect, and God does not expect perfection from us. God expects us to aim for righteousness, rather than to come up with excuses when we sin. We receive God’s grace freely every time we choose to own up to our mistakes and turn from our sins, rather than to keep going down the wrong path. 

The good news is that God notices every single attempt we make to turn our lives around, it all counts in God’s eyes. The people around you might not notice any difference in your behavior yet, but God knows how hard you are trying to change. God notices every effort we make and he also notices every time we choose sin. We get away with nothing in front of God. There’s no sin you can commit that God won’t judge you for one day, unless you choose to come to Him and ask for forgiveness in repentance.

The beautiful message of the gospel is that no matter how bad you have messed up in your life it’s never too late to change your course. We can never become too broken or too old for God to be able to do His redeeming work in us. We are also aware that we will never “arrive” in this lifetime. You can’t live a generous life in your thirties and forties, retire at 55 and spend the rest of your life focused on yourself. You will never arrive at a place where you have done enough good deeds and can “check out” of your responsibilities and focus on yourself. The day your mission in this life is finished will be the day you die, the day that God brings you home to heaven. 

I’m greatly encouraged by the fact that every day matters to God. How I choose to live my life today is important to God. God doesn’t need me to graduate university, land the dream job or start my own non-profit for Him to be pleased with me. Every small act of kindness and love matters to God. Big dreams and ambition is good to have but God isn’t hard to please. All God requires from me is that I love Him with all my heart, and that I love on all the people I interact with everyday.

When I aim to live this “life of love” God is pleased with me every single day. God gives me the strength I need to be able to choose love, and when I sin, fail and mess up God’s forgiveness and grace is available for me every time. That’s a free and beautiful way to live! I’m aiming for love, but I’m fully aware that I will end up sinning daily and that God will forgive me every time I do. I’m free to try again, without even a hint of shame or condemnation.

 “A good person’s good life won’t save him when he decides to rebel, and a bad person’s bad life won’t prevent him from repenting of his rebellion. A good person who sins can’t expect to live when he chooses to sin. It’s true that I tell good people, “Live! Be alive!” But if they trust in their good deeds and turn to evil, that good life won’t amount to a hill of beans. They’ll die for their evil life.

“‘On the other hand, if I tell a wicked person, “You’ll die for your wicked life,” and he repents of his sin and starts living a righteous and just life—being generous to the down-and-out, restoring what he had stolen, cultivating life-nourishing ways that don’t hurt others—he’ll live. He won’t die. None of his sins will be kept on the books. He’s doing what’s right, living a good life. He’ll live.

 “‘Your people say, “The Master’s way isn’t fair.” But it’s the way they’re living that isn’t fair. When good people turn back from living good lives and plunge into sin, they’ll die for it. And when a wicked person turns away from his wicked life and starts living a just and righteous life, he’ll come alive.”

(EZEKIEL 33:12-19)

Showing Kindness

I really value learning about life from older women who have dealt with the same things that I'm facing in my life today. Older women who can offer their wisdom and encouragement. Mary Kassian is a Canadian author, speaker, blogger and professor. Mary is also a wife, mom, granny, cyclist and dog lover. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is an American author, speaker and radio host. Together Nancy and Mary have written a book called True Woman 201 and in this video they talk about why it makes a huge difference in the world when a woman chooses to show kindness to others.

Most people would agree that choosing to show kindness to others is a nice thing to do, but for a Christian it's a godly thing to do. God showed kindness to us when he saved us so how can we not show kindness to others as a response to that? When we have experienced God's love and kindness in our own lives being kind to others becomes the natural response.

We all know that kindness can make a huge difference in our interactions with others but it's still difficult to be kind to others. Sometimes it's easier to be kind to strangers than it is to be kind to our own husbands and children. We easily become snappy and mean when we are too busy, stressed or tired. We know that God values a kind heart very highly and therefore it's important for each one of us to be willing to grow in the area of kindness.

We don't have to beat ourselves up when we end up being unkind to others, every day is a new chance to practice choosing kindness. We are all on a kindness journey and the more we practice patience, self-control and kindness the better we will get at it.

Can a person be too kind?

I read an article in a health magazine the other day on the topic of being "too kind." I´m thinking that from the time little children start to understand our language we tell them to be kind, but can you bee too kind? I agree with all the advice given in the article but I find that the language is misleading. You often hear people say things like "she is being too kind for her own good".


It´s important not to let people use you or treat you with lack of respect. Every healthy relationship has to inculde two people who both give and take. If you give but seldom get anything back the relationship isn´t healthy. On the other hand I wouldn´t say that the problem is that the person who is being taken advantage of is being "too kind". I would say that the problem is rather that this person isn´t kind enough towards herself. When we are loving towards others and ourselves we are at the same time protecting ourselves from being taken advantage of. If you have a healthy relationship towards yourself you will love, care for and respect yourself. Once you love yourself you can love others without risking being taken advantage of. The advice given in the article pointed out that it´s good to be "a little selfish" sometimes. I would disagree and say that selfishness never leads to anything good, it´s rather selflove that we lack.


Another problem is that we tend to care to much about what other people think of us. If we constantly do everything for others because we are afraid that otherwise they won´t like us then we aren´t being kind towards ourselves. It can be painful to realize that a person you did everything for might not like you if you stop, but people who treat you like that aren´t really worth your devotion anyways. People who love you for real won´t need you to do everything for them, they are happy just to get to be around you. People who love you unconditionally will be happy to serve you just like you serve them.


The better you get at loving yourself, the more likely you are to surround yourself with good people, the users will no longer be able to use you. Once you put your foot down and demand respect you are at the same time helpeing the person who has been using you. The usuer will now be forced to change if he or she wants to keep the relationship close. Letting someone continue to treat you without respect isn´t helping anyone, neither you nor the other person. Most of the positive changes we make to our own behavior we make because there is a demand for it. When you commit lo loving yourself it will be bettter for everyone.