Kindness is defined as the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. The synonym of “kindness” is “gentleness.” I wrote a detailed blog on how to be kind, which I think you’ll enjoy greatly. Kindness for me sometimes is natural but other times it’s overcome by my anger. My temper is definitely hot. But I’m a child of God, and I am kind by choice more often than it’s natural or easy fr me. This Biblical devotional will explain how and why I chose kindness to honor God. To understand my life story, abuse, manipulation, tormenting, rejection, rape, torture, violence, and pain I endured, read “Getting To Know Anna Szabo.” The affirmation below is the daily mantra, with which I renew my own mind in rder to walk in the Spirit and not in the Flesh.

Introduction

I am kind in the depths of my heart. But life also taught me some tough skills of protecting myself by being aggressive and guarding my heart by being defensive. From a very young age, I was on my own: abused every day, I had to learn how to get angry, enraged, and even violent in order to physically fight for myself as a kid. My grandma attempted to chock me when I was five. I had to find it within myself to hit her in the stomach with my legs to save my life as she was lifting me up, against the wall in our hallway, to kill me. My mother would beat me until I turned blue or purple and was bleeding. I had to cultivate enough anger within myself to one day grab that thin black leather belt from her and give her some of it so she would leave me alone. I did that, and it changed me. My aunt chased me with a knife before I even was in elementary school. I felt so scared, I still cry remembering that night. Grandpa stood up for me and kicked her out of our home. At 12, my mother encouraged me to commit suicide. She would look me straight in the eye and scream: “I hate you and I just want you dead!” Those experiences of chronic childhood abuse changed me. Then, at 25, I became a victim of domestic violence in a foreign country, without speaking English to ask for help, without having friends, without any support, I was enslaved and very scared. I had to physically fight my first husband to save my life.

I am kind. Still, I can get very angry sometimes.

Click here to read my poem about anger.

Sometimes, we have this idealistic illusion that kind people are saint or never get angry or that angry people never show kindness and tenderness. It’s fairytale-like and not realistic. Death row inmates who killed, dismembered, and burned humans are often caught helping prison guards when those are attacked. It’s kindness at its best. Kind people who do missionary work and counseling and baptize little kids often shoot themselves in the head in front of their own kids. All those are real stories, and many of them have been examined on my blog with the links to the actual news stories.

Kindness and anger coexist in all of us.

That’s why we must choose kindness intentionally.

Here’s a poem I wrote about kindness.

"Kindness" #PoemsFromGod

Kindness is not a virtue of saints.
All of us have the potential for kindness
When our ego essentially faints,
When we give up our childish blindness.

Kindness is strength. Kindness is power.
Kindness requires compassion and empathy.
Your genuine kindness can people empower,
Uniting our world in harmonious sympathy.


2/1/2020 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA

I wrote that poem after helping a homeless pregnant black teen on the street to get medical attention, find shelter, buy clothes, and reestablish her life. It was in November of 2019. Here’s that story in the news. I am also the person who told my husband “F.. you, a…ole, go to hell!” after months of chronic manipulation, abandonment, and narcissistic abuse he inflicted on me to feed his fragile ego.

I am the same person. These illustrations reveal that our human condition isn’t perfect, but we have free will, so we have choices, and we must choose kindness whenever possible.

I Am Kind

For me, it takes a lot of work. Why? Because I endured so much cruelty, brutality, and torture in my life. I described my experiences in an essay called “How My Narcissistic Mother Treated Me.” I lived in a state of war at home every day as a kid.

There was no safe place for me when I was a little girl: violence, hostility, and abuse were everywhere I turned. I felt lonely, exposed, vulnerable, terrified, and stressed out every moment of my childhood. I never knew unconditional love, and there wasn’t anyone to comfort me during the times of adversity.

But God grabbed a hold of me, and His love has healed me. Let me share what He taught me: both kindness and gentleness are on the list of the none virtues enabled by the Holy Spirit in us (Galatians 5:22-23). Galatians lists these virtues as the Fruit of the Spirit:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Galatians 5:22-23

Let me share with you a very specific and detailed personal story where anger and kindness battled daily as I was enduring abuse, rejection, betrayal, cheating, backstabbing, threats, and manipulation in my marriage while wanting and trying to choose kindness. That marriage has been described on this Christian blog through such essays as “How Satan Came at Me Looking Saint,” “My Story of Narcissistic Abuse Relationship,” and “IronMan vs Marriage.” In January of 2016, Michel knelt in front of me at Perimeter Church and asked me to be His wife. In May of 2016, I walked down the aisle and took Michel’s last name. In September of 2016, Michel filed for a divorce and said that he didn’t want to be married anymore and instead wanted to be an IronMan and compete in Kona. I felt angry but I also loved Michel with all my heart.

Anger vs Kindness

Anger is not invalid or bad. It warns us that either someone else or we ourselves violated our blueprint of standards and expectations for how things should be. You see, we all have blueprints for how everything should be in life. And in addition to our perfect blueprints for life’s circumstances, we also carry around manuals for people. We know exactly how people should be. My manual for Michel had all my expectations clearly defined. But Michel didn’t follow my manual.

I was angry and I withdrew because of hurt.

What about God’s manual for me? 

He clearly defined in the Bible how He wanted me to be. But I wasn’t like that. I violated His standards for my behavior pretty regularly. Was God angry with me? Was He withdrawing, too? Below is the Scriptures-based answer to those questions.

“In an outburst of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting lovingkindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your redeemer.

Isaiah 54:8

So, God did feel anger… and He did withdraw. God was able to feel for me the same anger I felt for Michel. Yet, after His initial withdrawal, my redeemer chose to give me His lovingkindness. I wasn’t Michel’s redeemer, yet I knew one thing: if I loved Christ, the goal of my life was to develop Christ-like character qualities. 

What was Christ saying here? He was saying: “I got angry with you because you violated my standards for how you should behave. And so I hid my face for a moment, I withdrew from you. I then had compassion for you. I showed you my kindness again because I chose to love you.” So, compassion and lovingkindness were inseparable. I asked myself: “What would it be like to feel compassion for Michel so that I could feel lovingkindness toward him despite him violating my standards for how he should behave as my husband and as a Christian?” 

Bitter, Angry, and Raging

As I was asking myself those questions, I thought about me and my Red-White Cocker Spaniel Bruno. I had standards for Bruno’s behavior, but often, he’d violate those standards by sleeping on my couch, secretly jumping on my bed and chilling there all day when I’m away, vomiting periodically after eating grass outside, or scratching the front door with his paws and messing up the paint.

I don’t like those behaviors. Yet, I don’t get angry at Bruno. I love him, so I’m kind to him. Could I show Michel the same unconditional compassion and kindness?

It felt very different tough because I knew Bruno didn’t intentionally plan to hurt and abuse me and to manipulate me into suicide. In my own shoes as an abandoned wife whose husband chose IronMan instead of marriage, I felt bitter, angry, and raging. I wanted Michel to choose me. I wanted to go back in time and undo the “I do.” I wanted to change my response to his marriage proposal from “Yes, absolutely!” to “Oh hell no!” on January 31st, 2016 when Michel in his red shirt knelt before me and proposed to me. I wanted to undo it all because I was so hurt. I hated what Michel did to our marriage and our love.

I was bitter because I felt victimized by Michel. I felt completely taken advantage of and lured into this marriage by deception. Yes, I did have anger, rage, and bitterness in me. It was such a surprise to me that I even rejected those parts of me and began dissociating from myself and my reality to cope with life.

However, my anger was no surprise to God!

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Ephesians 4:31-32

The reason why the Bible would say “get rid of” something is that God already knows that we have it to begin with. That verse validated the normality of me having bitterness, anger, and rage. Furthermore, it offered a solid plan of action for how I was to rid myself of those feelings by choosing kindness and compassion.

Interestingly, the verse tells us how kindness and compassion would be originated – through forgiveness. Forgiveness??? What? No!!! That was my initial reaction. And then I looked closely and saw that I wasn’t asked to forgive Michel because of my acceptance of his actions. I was asked to forgive Michel despite what he did to me and because of what Jesus did for me. Jesus died for my sins, and that’s why I was forgiven. Out of gratitude for my salvation, because Jesus forgave my wrongdoings, I was called by God to forgive Michel kindly and compassionately. It was hard. I fought God but eventually surrendered.

Envious, Boasting, and Proud

I wanted to love Michel. I wanted to forgive him. I wanted to feel compassion for him. Only Michel was mistreating me every day. He was cheating on me. He was openly humiliating and rejecting me. I was envious of the IronMan bicycle who got to spend 60 hours a week with my husband. Why do I say “who” when I’m supposed to say “that” when I’m talking about a bicycle? Because Michel had a relationship with his IronMan bicycle as if it were a human woman.

I was boasting about my presence in our marriage and commitment to Michel. I was proud feeling that I was better than Michel in my own eyes. Envious, boasting, and proud, I began studying what God said about love and how to love. I attended Biblical counseling to help me lean on the Lord and not on Michel in our marriage. I wanted to refocus from what Michel did to what God did.

Michel and I organized our own wedding, decided on a wedding venue, favors, everything. Michel was a seminary graduate who worked at North Point Church and officiated weddings. His favorite scripture was about what love is. That’s why our wedding invitations and wedding favors all had this Bible verse displayed:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

1 Corinthians 13:4

Here was my word “kind.” Just exactly what I wanted to be. And the only way to be that was to stop being proud, boasting, and envious. I realized how blind I was all that time. I thought that for me to be able to love Michel and be kind to him, he needed to change. God opened up my eyes and showed me that it was I who needed to change. I needed to learn how to obey God’s teachings about love and kindness. This Biblical poem about love was born later as I was pondering my marriage, our relationship, what Michel did, and how I racted.

"How To Love" #PoemsFromGod

 You asked us to love one another.
 You taught us the details of love.
 Instructions you gave us are thorough,
 But knowing them isn't enough.
 
 To love one another with kindness
 Means dying to flesh every day
 And also surrendering our blindness,
 While choosing in Spirit to your word obey.
 
 To love one another with patience 
 Acceptance requires and yielding,
 And selfless forgiving in all situations,
 In prayer each other uplifting.
 
 You told us that love is not proud,
 Not arrogant, it's rather humble,
 And so you requested each other we honor,
 In hope persevere we, when stumble.
 
 Your orders of love are high-maintenance,
 But trusting in you, I surrender.
 I'm learning to love with kindness and patience
 To glorify you in your splendor.  


8/23/17 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA

When going through all the daily drama and enduring all that trauma, I knew that to become kind toward the one who inflicted pain on me, I would absolutely have to experience compassion for him. And so I tried to cultivate compassion for Michel.

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Kindness and Compassion

Experiencing compassion for someone requires us to refocus from our own pain and think about their hurts to understand their wounding, broken-heartiness, and pain. I began thinking about Michel’s childhood and his hurts of enduring rejection and abandonment. His mom died when he was two. His dad had 31 daughters from various women, and two other kids with his mom. His twin brother and he were stolen from grandma who was raising them. His dad ended up in prison. He was, just like me, always waiting to be accepted and loved by his dad, which never happened. I could relate to it because my dad was in prison and never was there for me. I thought about my time with Michel at the IronMan, which he did right after our wedding. We never had a honeymoon. On May 22nd of 2016, I was in Chattanooga, TN supporting Michel at his IronMan. He shared how he was competing for medals to prove himself but, actually, it was his deep childhood hurt from running races waiting for his dad to show up and affirm him. I remembered thousands of people waiting to cheer Michel on and shouting “Michel, you can do it!” and “Szabo, Szabo, Szabo!” and “Go, Michel, go!” It was everything Michel didn’t have growing up: attention, admiration, affirmation, and acceptance. He chose IronMan over our marriage because it filled the void in his heart from those early years, which I could never fill.

Michel played the song called “The hall of fame” up to 11 times a night on repeat: you can be the greatest, you can be the best, Standin’ in the Hall of Fame (Yeah), And the world’s gonna know your name (Yeah), ‘Cause you burn with the brightest flame (Yeah), And the world’s gonna know your name (Yeah), And you’ll be on the walls of the Hall of Fame. Michel desired fame. He wanted his name to be known. He wanted to be admired. And I was just one person who tried her best to love him and wanted his quiet presence eating dinner and breakfast at home together chatting about mundane daily happenings. That was my dream. But Michel had a dream for himself. And I felt compassion for him. And wept from being overwhelmed by sadness…

RELATED: The Healing Power of Self-Pity

I knew that I could never give Michel what thousands of cheering IronMan fans can give him. I remembered how he told me: “… and here’s my bicycle, my other wife I cheat on you with…” My heart was crushed. My soul was shuttered in millions of pieces… because it was true: Michel was absent from home, cheating on me with his bicycle. It was so painful… Yet, I felt compassion for the pain and hurt of a 38-year-old man who felt real feelings and relational attachment toward an IronMan bicycle. Michel wasn’t able to connect with me because I was in the way of his ego getting what it really wanted: fame. I felt compassion because, from that place of relating to Michel as a “wounded fellow human” instead of “my evil husband,” I saw how much he was hurting. And I was hurting, too. I saw how incapable I was of giving  Michel the fame he so desired. Even though I wholeheartedly wanted to make Michel happy, I couldn’t. I did my best. But it wasn’t good enough. I could never give Michel the fame and public administration IronMan could give him.

And I cried… we were both very wounded. There was nothing I could do about his decisions. I explained my own childhood wounds in an essay called “The Impact of Chronic Childhood Abuse on My Psyche.” I thought to myself: “I did my best. What if Michel did his best, too? If my best wasn’t good enough, how do I know for sure that what I was getting from Michel was not his best?” That breakthrough realization allowed me to experience compassion for Michel. 

I expressed my feelings later in a poem-prayer.

"My Husband for a Reason" 
 
 God, I'm praying for my husband:
 Can you please renew his mind?
 Give him heart that's made of flesh and
 Make him faithful, wise, and kind.

 God, I pray that you draw close him -
 To disciple be of Jesus,
 Trusting that you truly chose him
 To my husband be for reasons. 

 For salvation his I'm praying
 And for healing of his wounds.
 At your feet my love I'm laying -
 His uprising me eludes. 
 
 Bless him, Father, give him peace.
 He's been suffering too long.
 From his past please him release
 And fill his heart with joyful song. 


9/16/17 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA

That breakthrough enabled me to practice kindness: the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. All thanks to Jesus revealing to me that the one needing to change was actually me. This of course doesn’t mean that Michel did not actually need to change to be a better human. It only means that I realized I couldn’t change Michel and shouldn’t try because it was God who needed to change him. My role in life is to be responsible for my behaviors and actions, not for Michel’s. We got divorced, and into my future, I only took Anna Szabo with me.

I didn’t take Michel Szabo into my future.

That’s why Anna was whom I needed to change.

Do you believe that in Christ you can be kind? If you do, memorize the Biblical affirmation I created for you below and practice it often. It’s based on all the Bible verses discussed above.

“I am Kind” Affirmation

I am Kind #52Devotionals

I'm kind, tenderhearted, forgiving, and acceptive.
No anger, no slander, no bitterness, and no being deceptive.
I'm compassionate, thoughtful, empathic, and gracious.
No mean words to others and no being minacious.