In my Christmas book titled Twelve Days of Christmas, Julia, my heroine, is blogging about her experiment in kindness. What she doesn’t expect is how kindness changes her.

That’s the punch line.

Kindness has a kickback of sorts. When we are kind to others, we are blessed too.

Let me give you a small example.

This past weekend I attended my class reunion. My dearest friend all through school was a girl named Jane. Unfortunately, Jane has MS and lives in a group home as she is no longer able to live independently.  It has broken my heart to see the progression of this illness over the years as it has affected Jane’s ability to move and walk.

Because of MS, Jane couldn’t attend the reunion. She sent a message for me to read to our classmates but I wanted to do more to show her she was with us in heart and we were thinking of her.

To accomplish this, I bought a few poster boards and another friend, Cherie, marked them up with notes to Jane. During the reunion I took photos of our classmates holding up these posters which I then texted to her daughter to show Jane that we were all thinking of her. Later, I brought the posters to the banquet dinner for everyone to sign. Sometime within the next couple of weeks, I’ll deliver the posters to Jane personally so she can read everyone’s notes to her.

Jane’s daughter told me how much it meant to her mother to see the photos of our classmates holding them up. That one act of kindness touched Jane and made her feel that she is loved and was missed.

The blessing for me came as I took the posters around to be signed. As a result, I was able to chat and talk with several of my classmates that I probably wouldn’t have taken the time to visit.

The blessing was two-fold. Jane was blessed and so was I. That’s the way kindness works. Such a little thing. Such a surprise. Such a blessing.