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Five Stars

January 20, 2025

Tresta Payne

Remember, O LORD, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses, For they [are] from of old.

—Psalm 25:6, NKJV

Another five-star review came in yesterday morning. I was at my desk, praying about the day and sorting paper piles, when Google pinged my phone with the message. Five stars from a stranger just passing through our little valley in the mountains, who may have only stopped at our deli to use the restroom or grab a drink. Sarah M. didn’t leave any words with the stars, but the five of them were the shining pinpricks of hope I needed. A handful of stars, for insurance against days when there is only darkness and discouragement.

I took a screenshot of the review and posted it to our work group chat, because all the people involved in earning those stars needed to see them.

Five stars. Five golden pronouncements of appreciation. A kindness.

Sarah M. did a muscular work. Kindness is no milquetoast virtue. Every act of kindness is a motion toward the way we want the world to be, which is upstream; which is countercultural; which requires a lengthening of the muscles we naturally use to preserve ourselves. I need the work of kindness from others to bring me back up to a baseline belief in the image of God in each of us, because I get discouraged sometimes.

King David asks God to remember His own lovingkindnesses—a beautifully made-up word translators concocted to give more robust meaning to kindness. God’s kindness is not an obligation toward me, not part of an economy of stars and badges. It’s loving, born out of His compassion. And His mercies are not contractual. He is tender toward me and gives mercy because it is His very character to give it. David reminds God of His character, and gives me words for my own prayer:

I’m reminding myself by reminding You—it’s me who forgets. I am the one who lives as if the other shoe is always about to drop, moping along in the shadow of death and discouragement. I forget, and that is maybe the most absurd thing about me.

I forget that You have a sure and steadfast character that has never changed. Even before I knew You, when I had to make everything work on my own, You were the one working things out. You were the faithful and steadfast Presence I had yet to acknowledge, and You are no less faithful now. Your lovingkindness is from of old, and I am so brand new, so slick and soft.

I am surprised by the kindness of strangers because I am primed for complaints and problems, for unhappy people and difficult situations. The bright shining stars of a positive review or a pleasant remark are an oncoming train in the dark, totally unexpected, derailing my broody mind from its negativity. I am a tangled trainwreck of conflicting thoughts about whether I deserve good or bad, what I’m working for, how my work in the world is perceived. I need the reminder that God is not out to punish me, and even more than the absence of punishment or a mere tolerance of me, God has loving kindness towards me.

According to Your mercy remember me, For Your goodness’ sake, O LORD.

Psalm 25:7b, NKJV

I think the kindness of God must always be available to me, not just as a byproduct of His goodness, but as a muscular act, a reaching forth on my behalf. It’s always available but I don’t always notice it.

Yesterday I walked a path I haven’t been on in months. It had changed since I last saw it—all the oaks and maples had dropped their coverings to the forest floor, but the evergreens distracted me from their nakedness. Along the creek, the sword ferns were mythically large, bigger than I’ve ever noticed before, and the mushrooms grew thick and glowed white in the duff. My hands were so cold and flaming red that it was nearly impossible to get my phone out of my pocket for a picture, but I finagled my numb fingers into cooperation and knelt low to get a snap.

Elaine Scarry says that beautiful things have been scattered around in the world “to serve as small wake-up calls to perceptions, spurring lapsed alertness back to its most acute level.” [1] Ferns and mushrooms and rushing water brought me back to attention in the moment, and later, looking through photos on my phone, I saw it all as a deliberate kindness. God knows what I love and what will be the spurs to goad me back on track—my mood and my attention both improved. For the sake of His goodness He mercifully re-members me back into a person who can receive His kindness everywhere—in the forest, in the five stars—and He reminds me to pay the dues of wonder: pay your attention to My lovingkindness.

All the paths of the LORD [are] mercy and truth, To such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.

Psalm 25:10, NKJV

Any direction I walk, if it’s a path of the Lord, will run me into His mercy and truth. In His lovingkindess He lets me be surprised by good reviews from strangers and spurred back to alertness by the wonder of His good world. And when I wander to my own paths, He has always been faithful to intersect my way with His. Mercy and truth are lovingkindnesses that correct and bless. I can see this in hindsight, but I still have trouble living day to day as if it’s true.

When the bad reviews and discouragements come, I want to keep believing in His tender mercy. I know that the muscular kindness of others and the beauty scattered around are gifts of His, and I know that sometimes we just don’t live up to the image of God in us and we can be cruel and rude and wrong. These two things feel in opposition—can they both be from God?

I’m writing and thinking aspirationally now, but I want to live in such a way that even the things that are unkind can be taken as the wounds of a friend, as reminders of my security in Christ. [2] When the negative feedback is true, I want to see that as a kindness. When there is no grain of truth in a criticism, when people are unkind and unjust, I want to fall back on the kindness of a God who remembers me in His mercy and not according to my failures. And I want to extend that kind mercy to myself, and to others.



[1] On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry

[2] Proverbs 27:6



The featured image, “Coffee Cups A-Waiting,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.



 

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