I still remember the excitement I felt walking to my car that morning — I was planning on doing something kind for a friend that I hoped would unexpectedly brighten their day.
While I was absorbed in my hopes, something yanked me back to reality: I found my car door ajar. Someone had stolen my car manual, my apartment parking pass and everything from the glovebox.
“That’s it,” I thought in frustration. Here I was thinking about doing something nice for someone, when a mean world couldn’t care less. “That’s the last time I try to be kind in an unkind world.”
But I was missing the point. Living in a mean world isn’t an excuse for us to be mean too; it’s proof we need to be kind now more than ever.
Prophetic calls to be kind
President Russell M. Nelson counseled us in April 2023: “Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to choose to be a peacemaker, now and always.”
And it’s not just some catchy words or a faraway ideal — he practices what he’s preached.
More than 60 years ago, a branch president assigned President Nelson to visit the home of Wilbur and Leonora Cox, hoping Wilbur Cox would come back to activity in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Although Wilbur Cox was cold and unwelcoming on their first visit, President Nelson took an interest in his radio work and offered to revisit him to learn more. “I began to love and respect him,” said President Nelson in April 2018, adding that the two became very good friends.
Because of that kindness, Wilbur Cox not only returned to church but also became the first president of the Boston Massachusetts Stake eight years later.
President Nelson didn’t let the apathy of a future friend diminish his own kindness or efforts to reach out — and neither should we.
In April 2000, the late Church President Thomas S. Monson — then first counselor in the First Presidency — spoke of a Mrs. Shinas, who at first was “our nemesis, the destroyer of our fun — even the bane of our existence” when he was a deacon.
He and his friends would play baseball in a small alleyway behind the houses where they lived. When they hit a ball into Mrs. Shinas’ yard, her dog would bring the ball to her door, and she would confiscate it.
This went on for two years, until one day a young Thomas Monson noticed Mrs. Shinas’ lawn begin to turn brown and decided to water it over the summer.
One evening, the woman welcomed the boy to her living room to present a box of missing baseballs. President Monson recounted: “I saw for the first time a smile come across the face of Mrs. Shinas, and she said, ‘Tommy, I want you to have these baseballs, and I want to thank you for being kind to me.’”
The last general conference he spoke in before his death, President Monson urged us in April 2017: “Let us examine our lives and determine to follow the Savior’s example by being kind, loving and charitable. And as we do so, we will be in a better position to call down the powers of heaven for ourselves, for our families and for our fellow travelers in this sometimes difficult journey back to our heavenly home.”
The Savior’s perfect example of kindness
The strength of my Savior, Jesus Christ, inspires me. I can’t begin to imagine the unfair and even traumatic experiences He endured in mortality.
He came to a world that should’ve accepted Him with bowed heads and teary eyes. But instead, most shook their heads and looked away. They should’ve reverently treasured His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, but instead, they arrested Him the same night. They replaced His gold crown and velvet throne with a crown of thorns and a cross He carried Himself.
If I were to die under such horrendous circumstances, I don’t think I’d want anything to do with humanity ever again.
But He came back. As easy as it would’ve been to turn His back on the world that turned its back on Him, He returned on glorious Easter morning, assuring His followers, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20).
He saw His painful moments as opportunities to strengthen us, fulfilling prophecy that “he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12).
No matter what unkindness or harshness we endure on this fallen earth, let’s follow the Savior’s example to not let it weaken our kindness. And maybe, with God’s help, we can even let these experiences grow our empathy and charity toward others.
Jesus Christ is, as always, a perfect example of that. The Savior is living proof that we don’t have to be scarless to be kind.
— Joel Randall is a reporter for the Church News.
