Summer is here! Is anyone else a little overwhelmed with everyone being home for months? Let’s revisit a time when we were hustling kids out the door for school…
Every morning when my kids walk out the door for school, I say the same three words to them.
Be the good.
It started years ago in the rush of ordinary mornings. Backpacks zipped, lunches packed, someone running late, someone else looking for a missing shoe (hello, my darling daughter!). As they step out the door and head toward the day ahead, I say it again.
Be the good.
Over time those three words have come to mean more to me than I ever expected. When our children walk into the world each day, they step into situations we can’t see and conversations we won’t hear. Classrooms, hallways, friendships, disappointments, victories, moments of pressure, moments of kindness.
Every day holds a mix of all of it.
Those three words are simply a reminder of who they can choose to be inside those moments.
Be the good.
Carry kindness into a space that may need it.
Offer encouragement when someone else feels small.
Choose patience when frustration would be easier.
A single person can shift the atmosphere of a room more than we often realize. One voice that encourages instead of criticizes. One person who includes someone standing alone. One moment of integrity when it would be easier to look the other way.
Small choices have a way of multiplying.
What began as something I said to my kids each morning has slowly turned into something I try to remember myself. What if this simple instruction is what God is asking of all of us? In conversations, in leadership, in the way we move through the community around us.
We all step into rooms every day. Workplaces, meetings, classrooms, grocery stores, neighborhoods. Each space already carries its own mood and momentum.
And every one of us contributes something to it.
Some people carry tension into a room. Others carry encouragement. Some people leave a trail of criticism behind them. Others leave people feeling stronger than they did before.
A thoughtful word.
A little extra patience.
A willingness to listen.
A moment of generosity.
These are small things that have a big way of shaping the environments we share.
That’s what sits inside those three words I say to my kids each morning.
Be the good.
This is a way of moving through the world. A reminder that every day offers chances to bring something good into the spaces we enter.
And when enough people begin to live that way, the good has a way of spreading far beyond a single moment.
Sometimes it begins with something as simple as three words spoken at the door before a school day begins.
Be the good.