The fruit of the Spirit is ...kindness. —Galatians 5:22 (niv)
Dianne, my wife, can tolerate a lot of pain, but her arthritic hip finally forced her to accept that it was time for surgery. She was in the hospital for three days after her hip-replacement operation. I was with her much of the time, but several dedicated nurses were with her all the time, one of nine spiritual gifts listed in Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
Yes, we are grateful for the skills of the surgeon and for nurses who can expertly find a vein when inserting a needle for an IV. And, yes, competence should be the tenth fruit of the Spirit. But in the course of the minute-by-minute duration of recovery, there is nothing more important than kindness.
“I’m just doing my job,” Nurse Kelley gently chided me after I thanked her more than once for taking care of my wife. How wrong she was! Kindness is a gift, not an obligation. Kelley, Bonnie, James, Lisa, and others whose names I’ve forgotten gave us that gift, again and again, until Dianne was able to come home.
