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The Courage To Be Kind

January 20, 2025

Kelly Keller

The 2015 film version of Cinderella has long been a favorite in our family. Lily James plays the title character with grace and realism; Cate Blanchett is unforgettable as the wicked stepmother; and Helena Bonham Carter plays a hilarious fairy godmother with flair. The costuming is glorious—who could forget that ballgown?!—and the set design is straight out of our English countryside dreams.

Near the beginning of the film, when Ella’s mother is dying, she calls Ella to her side and tells her to “have courage and be kind.” These are her parting instructions for enduring “all the trials that life can offer.” Throughout the film, we see Ella remember her mother’s words as a bedrock for her character. As she is mistreated by her father’s new family, Ella comes back to the refrain again and again: have courage and be kind. 

I used to think of these words as two separate ideas: Have courage; be kind. The world needs courageous people, and the world needs kind people, so be brave and also be nice. On further consideration, though, I have realized that these two ideas are a single effort. “Have courage and be kind,” because it requires courage to be truly kind.

We have all been the recipients of routine kindnesses. Perhaps somebody brought you a meal once. Maybe they always remember your birthday or they treat your family with generosity. These gestures of kindness are valuable; they are what hold together friendships and communities. Of course, we ought to show kindness to those who do so to us.

However, a deeper version of kindness is called for when we are mistreated. In the face of cruelty, whether it be open or masked, courageous kindness is required. Jesus requires this brand of kindness from His disciples when He teaches that we are no different from anyone else when we love only those who love us: “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same” (Luke 6:32–33 ESV). Peter reminds the early church of this type of kindness when he calls them to “. . . not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless . . .” (1 Pet. 3:9). 

This level of kindness requires so much of us! When we routinely encounter those who do us harm—either unintentionally, or worse, on purpose—we are vulnerable and liable to be hurt. It requires tremendous courage to continue to turn the other cheek. We are reminded of the orphan girl, taken advantage of and betrayed, left alone to work once again, while everyone else goes off to the ball.

We all have people in our lives who, for whatever reason, are unkind to us. Whether it be the incidental brisk comment or a consistent, intentional pattern of meanness, we are the subject of their carelessness. Perhaps they simply lack tact in conversation, bullying everyone without knowing it. Perhaps there’s a more sinister intention that lies beneath. Either way, when we are in the moment, we are presented with a choice of what to do—of how to react. Will we return bluntness for bluntness? Or will we courageously, prayerfully summon a greater courage?

I do not mean to say that this is an easy choice. These occasions are when I most feel akin to Cain, being told that “sin is crouching at the door” (Gen. 4:7 ESV). My inner struggle for justice cries out to rise to the surface and be given a full-volume hearing, in defense of myself and my feelings. It is at these times that I am helped by a remembrance of God’s sovereignty in the situation. He is not absent; He has brought us both—myself and my insulter—to this place. Where do we go from here?

Marilynne Robinson explains it well in her masterwork Gilead:

When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person.[1]

Where greater love and kindness are in demand, requiring courage, we make a good start by recalling our Lord’s presence there in the midst of things.

As Cinderella closes, our fairy godmother narrator tells us that Prince Kit and Cinderella were the “fairest and kindest rulers” the kingdom had ever seen and that Cinderella continued to see the world “as it could be, rather than as it is.” We are meant to understand that for Cinderella, the jewel-encrusted hair, glass slippers, and gauzy ballgown are a mere reflection of the woman underneath. She is beautiful within, and in her efforts to show kindness to those deserving and undeserving alike, she manifests the courage first called for at her mother’s knee.



[1]Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY, 2004, p. 124.



The featured image, “Juniper in Snow,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.



 

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