Gentle

Just speaking the word gentle brings me an immediate feeling of calm and peace and also brings back a special memory.  I remember I was only 12 years old when I became an aunt for the first time.   My sister and her husband lived in their new apartment, which was within walking distance from my parents’ house.  I was lucky and excited to be entrusted with babysitting my new, beautiful niece.  I found myself spending lots of time there, fussing over this new addition to our family.  There were many moments, while standing over her crib as she slept peacefully, that I wanted to just wake her up and hold her.  Of course, having no experience with babies at that time, I remember those familiar words whenever she was handed to me or I picked her up, “Be gentle with her.  Be careful, make sure you support her head.”  So immediately I would be more aware and careful in my movements of holding her.  I think about that word now – gentle – and think we should all keep that word in mind more often in our everyday lives.  When we want to use harsh words with others, be gentle when we speak.  When we fight against forgiving someone, repeat the words “be gentle” (in our thoughts) with forgiving others.   Our best example of being gentle is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She and Joseph were entrusted with raising God’s only Son, encountering many hardships, chastised by others, but always keeping an air of grace and gentleness through it all.   In our world today, when we are witnesses and, unfortunately, participants in the opposite of the word gentle, let’s strive to use Mary as the best witness of how to live out our lives as Christians.  If you and I were gentler in our words, actions and deeds what a better world we would experience.  Just like I was told to be gentle in holding my newborn niece in my arms, so Jesus wants us to use His mother as an example of how we should live our lives by holding her Son gently in our arms every day.

“Mary kept in mind all these things as she pondered them in her heart.” 

Luke 2:19, 51