Compassion Prayer Partners | Kindness

Compassion sends out a monthly prayer partner newsletter. I love their suggestions of how to pray for our sponsored kids and thought that I would begin sharing these each month. This month's prayer newsletter is from Mark Hanlon, Senior Vice President of Compassion International. Click here to download the August prayer calendar.

Have you ever noticed that children seem to have a knack for knowing something’s wrong — and how they can be so kind in the middle of it all? While they can be seemingly oblivious to bad things going on around them, I’m always surprised at just how perceptive they are. When my son was young, there were times when he would snuggle up next to me, or hug me or even just smile brightly across the room, at the exact moment I needed that small measure of kindness. Sometimes before I even knew I needed it.

The kindness of children is simple — a gift of a yellow dandelion or a prized toy — but at the same time it is profound. In my mind, the kindness of children seems to be a gift from God Himself, a seed He has planted.

But kindness is also delicate. As children grow older, they are often met with unkindness. And for children in poverty, that comes in the form of an all-too-unkind world. Hunger and disease and neglect can batter a child’s natural tendency to see the world as a place to love and be loved.

At our Compassion centers, we lavish kindness on children — and they respond in kind! A child who is loved and protected feels the freedom to show kindness. I can see it in the pictures they draw and the letters they write to their sponsors. In the prayers they pray for their family and friends. Hearts hardened by poverty grow pliable. Kindness flourishes.

This month, I would like to thank you for your own kindness shown to millions of children in poverty around the world. What greater act of love can there be than to lift up prayers and praises to the Father on behalf of each of these precious children. Your kindness is a gift. Thank you for that.