“Pray for them”

I had an intresting conversation with my friends the other night about what we do when people have hurt us. How can we be part of a change and make spaces better? Now, none of us are perfect, pranks were thrown around, but in the end, we came to the conclusion that the answer was to kill them with kindness. What does that look like, though? Is it enough? How can we know if this will create lasting change? The answer is we don’t know, but the Lord does teach us.

In Matthew 5:44, we read “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matt. 5:44, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2026). Serve them, love them. Yes, Christ threw tables in the temple, but that is not our responsibility. Chapter 5 is the Sermon on the Mount, and this verse tells us exactly what we have been called to do for those who have wronged us.

Serve them. Learn about their needs and serve them. Show them that you care. No, you don’t need to be their best friend. In fact, I believe that if you have been hurt by someone, it is okay to set a boundry and not have a friendship. But that does not mean we don’t show people kindness. Stepping back from the hurt, showing kindness and grace allows God to come in and has given me a deeper understanding of Christ’s Atonement.

Hurt happens; we won’t make it through life without it. I wouldn’t want to. As much as I dislike hurt, and I dislike seeing those I care about get hurt, I have found it is where learning and growth happen. In this picture, we see the Japanese tradition of “kintsugi”. This is where they fix broken clay with glue and gold paint. Healing the broken and making. I believe there is so much more to this tradition, though.

Could you take a look at that plate? It was beautiful before, A work of art, but then something happened. Maybe someone dropped it, maybe it got hit with a hammer, or maybe it simply fell off the shelf. The world teaches us that when something breaks, we throw it away. Japanese tradition teaches us that we pick it up and help it heal. We turn it into something even more beautiful and valuable.

If we apply this to ourselves, the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the gold paint that heals the cracks. He is the one who picks us up off the floor and saves us. He heals the hurt caused by others.

What does our hurt healing have to do with killing people with kindness? Besides the fact that it is fun to shock people by being kind, even after they know they have done something wrong. Well, we are showing Christ-like love, we are developing the Christ-like attributes of Charity, Grace, Peacemaking, and probably more, but those are what popped into my head. These are the reasons we should kill people with kindness.

No, it is not easy, honestly, it is really hard. Luckly I have amazing friends to walk this path with. People who I have watched grow and change, who have helped motivate me to change, and given me hope. People who also think that the solution is to kill them with kindness, even if it is hard.