But as a little tyke, he was more than a handful! He was into everything under the sun, broke all of his toys and a lot of things around the house. On the rare occasion that he napped, Linda would often quip, “Don’t worry, he’s just recharging.”
When he was three or so, he was buckled into his car seat next to his sister. All of a sudden we heard this blood-curdling scream from Erica and Brock’s little boy voice, “Lolly Eeah! Lolly Eeah!” (Translated: “Sorry Erica”)
We don’t know how he did it, but somehow, while still buckled in, he opened the back seat trap door that led to the trunk, pulled the jumper cables into the back seat, and attached one end to Erica’s arm. Hence, the blood-curdling scream.
It wasn’t malicious. He wasn’t trying to hurt her. But it wasn’t thought through entirely well, either. The poor girl had a jumper cable scar on her arm until she was 15.
You don’t have to be malicious to hurt other people. But you do have to think carefully about your words and actions to avoid it. Much of the time, we hurt because of carelessness or thoughtlessness. It may not be an intentional injury, but for the injured party, it hurts nonetheless.
That’s why our words need to be chosen carefully, and our actions and choices must be made with others in mind. If we live without thinking, everyone around us winds up being the recipient of jumper cable like incidences, while we just keep defending ourselves claiming that we meant no ill-will. That’s not enough. We need to intentionally do good, encourage one another, and think about our words and actions that affect others before we do and say things we do. Kindness is not something that just happens. It’s something we have to do on purpose.
“Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them” (Ephesians 4:29 NLT).
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