Live Original (Sadie Robertson)

by Sadie Robertson

  One time when my little sister, Bella, was younger, Two-Mama was really excited because she was going to get to go to Las Vegas with my mom, my dad, and Two-Papa, to a trade show for Duck Commander. But Bella got the flu the day before Two-Mama planned to fly out. My mom was already in Las Vegas because she had to be out there a day earlier to set up for the show. Well, Two-Mama could not bear to leave Bella with a babysitter when she had the flu, so she decided to stay home. John Luke and I were there too.

  The way Two-Mama tells the story, John Luke disappeared for a little while one afternoon while she was keeping us. She knew he was in the house and safe, but he was very quiet. He later walked up to her and handed her a bouquet of flowers made of pipe cleaners. This homemade gift (showing his artistic side!) was his way of telling Two-Mama he knew she had made a sacrifice in order to stay home, and he loved and appreciated her for doing that. He didn’t have the words to express what was in his heart, so he put his heart into a bouquet of flowers, and Two-Mama knew exactly what he was trying to tell her. That’s one of her favorite examples of kindness.

  Another one of her favorite stories is about a time when she ended up babysitting five toddlers for a whole weekend. (Two-Mama babysits a lot!) There was a moment when all five were crying and needing things at the same time, and Two-Mama was pretty stressed about it. In fact, she says that whole day was totally stressful for lots of reasons.

  John Luke was with her, and he was older than the other children. She says he followed her around that day very patiently, not asking for anything. She felt bad because she could not give him much attention. Later, she even told him she was sorry she had not been able to do much with him that day, and maybe they could spend more time together the next day.

  The next morning, Two-Mama got up and saw a message in soap-crayon on her bathroom mirror. It simply said: “I love you, 2-Mama.”

  John Luke had written it the night before. When Two-Mama tells this story, she always makes it a point to say that John Luke did not tell her about the message when he wrote it. He could see she was busy and stressed, so he just did it and then waited patiently for her to find it. For him, that act of kindness was not about being praised for doing something nice; it was about blessing his tired grandmother!

  I was the one to receive kindness one night last year when I had had “one of those days.” I had so much to do, and I was super stressed about it. I’m sure lots of teenagers can relate to that. I had to stay up really late that night trying to finish my homework, and I was so upset about the pressure that I ended up crying and feeling completely overwhelmed.

  When I finally got ready to go to bed, which was probably sometime really early in the morning, I found a note from Bella on my pillow. The note had a Bible verse and a message about how much she loved me and hoped I was not stressed (which I was, totally). That made my night—and the whole next day. I basically forgot about the stress and could not think about anything but how sweet Bella was to write me that note.

  Bella was pretty young when she left the note for me, only ten years old. But even at that age, she knew how to be kind. No one has to wait until they get older to be kind! Besides that, Bella did not have to spend a lot of time or money to write me that little note. It only took her a couple of minutes, and she did it with a piece of paper and a pen she found around our house. I say this to make the point that kindness can be quick, easy, and inexpensive. All it takes is a heart that cares about other people.

  Another example of kindness comes from my brother Will. He and Bella ride with me to school every morning. Believe it or not, between John Luke and me, I am actually the better driver, so they like riding with me. Every morning during the wintertime, Will gets ready and goes outside in the cold to turn on the car and get it warmed up for me. I did not realize how awesome that really is until one morning after Will had spent the night with a friend and I had to get in the freezing-cold car and sit in the driveway waiting for the windshield to defrost before I could drive to school. When he came home, I made it a point to tell him how much I appreciated his doing that special act of kindness every morning to help my day start off warm and toasty.

  THINK ABOUT OTHERS

  All my life, Two-Papa has had a great way of doing acts of random kindness. He gives away one-hundred-dollar bills to people in need. He does it anonymously (though some people will find out about it in this book), and he does it for only one reason: he genuinely wants to make people happy.

  One time, he walked by an old car in a Walmart parking lot and just happened to look inside. Among all the trash on the front seat, he saw a bill from the electric company and realized the person’s electricity was about to be cut off. The bill happened to be just under a hundred dollars. He put a hundred-dollar bill on the seat under the electric bill and went on his way.

  Another time, he gave everyone in our church youth group one hundred dollars at Christmastime. But there was a catch: they could not keep the money; they had to give it to someone else. After Christmas, the group got together and everyone had to say what they did with the money. There were stories of teenagers who bought groceries for families, paid bills, and got toys for children who would not have had toys at Christmastime otherwise.

  That Christmas, Two-Papa really gave the youth group a better gift than anything money could buy, definitely worth more than one hundred dollars. He taught them the importance of thinking about others and he gave them the resources to find out how good it feels to do something for someone else.

  KINDNESS MADE THE DIFFERENCE

  Years ago, when my papaw Phil fished to support his family, he had to be very serious about his fishing, and he carefully guarded the river near his house.

  Some local boys started making trouble one day when they stole some of his fish. Then they came back another day, and another day. It really got to be a problem. Papaw Phil finally went outside with a shotgun and yelled that he would shoot them if they did not get off his property—for good! Papaw Phil and his shotgun would have scared a lot of people away, but not those boys. They kept coming back.

  During this time, Papaw Phil became a Christian, and the next time they came back, instead of going outside with his gun, he took his Bible. He walked over to them and said, “Whatever fish you have, you can keep. But you have to come to my house and have a Bible study with me.”

  They did, and they never stole from him again. The shotgun did not keep those boys away, but kindness got the job done.

  IT’S GOT TO BE GENUINE

  I hope it’s clear by now that acts of random kindness do not have to be big things—like my boyfriend’s willingness to risk ruining his car. What they do have to be is genuine. If not, they feel a little bit cheesy and empty to people. Whatever you do to be kind to people will usually make a positive impression on them, but what really makes a big impact is the genuineness and sincerity in your heart when you do it. Look people in the eye when you do something nice for them and say, “God bless you”—and mean it. Whatever you do, it needs to come from a place inside of you that wants to honor God and bless other people.

  Ever since I saw Evan Almighty, the whole idea of acts of random kindness has stuck with me. As I have tried to do nice, unexpected things for people, I have learned that it’s important to always be ready to help, no matter where you are—and it’s important to have a smile on your face when you do it. If you do something helpful, but you sigh and roll your eyes and act bothered about it, the action may not be genuinely kind. And people know it. They also know when you are sincere.

  You might get some hate when you extend kindness to people. They may wonder what you want from them, or they may find some other reason to question whether you are sincere or not. Just shake that off and be kind anyway.

  DO IT NOW

  I recently heard about a story on a Christian radio station. The host talked about a man somewhere in America who realized that people offered to help him pretty often. He was thinking about people in stores who say, “Ma
y I help you?” or maybe even people at places like the post office or a library. He also realized he almost always said no when people offered to help.

  So he decided to start saying yes—not just sometimes, but every time someone asked, “May I help you?”

  One day a man at the grocery store said, “Can I take your groceries to your car?”

  He said yes.

  He tried to tip the man, but the man refused to take any money and started telling a story.

  The man had been diagnosed with cancer about fifteen years earlier, and the doctors only gave him a short time to live. For some reason, though, he was one of those people who outlived his diagnosis—by something like fifteen years at that point. When he got past the time the doctors said he would live, he decided to spend the rest of his life helping people, every way he could. That’s how he ended up working at the grocery store. The job gave him a chance to help people every single day.

  My youth minister at church says people sometimes wait until something bad happens to someone before they do nice things for that person. Maybe someone on your sports team has an injury and everyone seems to really care about that person when he or she is hurt, but no one has taken an interest before. I have decided that I want to make a difference while the good stuff is happening; I don’t want to wait until someone is in a bad situation to start doing nice things. I hope you won’t wait either. Let’s get busy together and do some acts of random kindness—with genuineness and sincerity—right now.

  Live Original Challenge

  1. Has someone ever done an act of random kindness for you? What was it, and how did it make you feel?

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  2. Is there someone at your school or in your family who would really appreciate an act of random kindness? Who is it, and what could you do for that person?

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  3. What can you do anonymously to bless or encourage someone?

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  4. List three ways you could make someone’s day today.

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  DON’T FORGET

  Do acts of random kindness every time you have a chance!

  But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies!

  Do good to those who hate you.

  Bless those who curse you.

  Pray for those who hurt you.

  —Luke 6:27–28

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Shake the Hate

  Our family gets a lot of invitations to do media appearances. Some people genuinely respect us and some are just really curious about us. The first time the men in the family were asked to be guests on one of the late-night talk shows, a musical group had also been invited to be part of the lineup. When they found out they would appear the same night as Papaw Phil and the rest of the guys, they refused to play. They did not seem to object to our Christian beliefs or our politics; they had an issue with hunting animals.

  I guess animal rights activists would have a problem with Papaw Phil; I get that. In our family, we view hunting and fishing as part of the circle of life, part of God’s design for us to eat and survive on this earth. If you have watched Duck Dynasty very much, you have probably seen how crazy Mamaw Kay is about her dogs, Jesse and Bobo; they are like part of the family. In fact, a lot of us Robertsons are animal lovers. We have lots of pets and we take great care of them. But the musical guests did not understand that.

  When the host interviewed Papaw Phil and asked him how he felt about the fact that the band would not appear with him, he had a simple answer: “We just love ’em anyway.”

  Just loving people anyway is the best response to hate. And hate seems to be happening more and more, especially among high school students. But even elementary school children experience bullying in school. It’s becoming a big problem. I guess one way to deal with hate is to give hate back, but a better way is to shake it off and love people anyway. 1 Peter 3:9 says,

  Don’t repay evil for evil.

  Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you.

  Instead, pay them back with a blessing.

  That is what God has called you to do,

  and he will grant you his blessing.

  IT’S HAPPENED TO ME

  When I was about fifteen or sixteen, some people in my own hometown were saying negative things about me. They were simply making stuff up; it wasn’t even true! People make stuff up about people in the spotlight all the time.

  Have you ever heard the saying “If you stick your neck out, be prepared for someone to try to chop it off”? That’s true. It happens. Through reading made-up stuff about us, my family has learned not to believe everything we read or hear in magazines, online, or on television. We have found that if an article or report says, “sources reveal,” or “sources close to the family say,” those words are just code for “We totally made this up.”

  Well, that was happening in my own hometown. People at other schools, who had never met me and knew absolutely nothing about me, were saying things about me. During this time, some of the people close to me felt the need to tell me every hurtful thing others said about me, and it really started getting to me.

  One day someone came up to me and said, “I need to tell you something So-and-So is saying about you.”

  I replied, “Is it going to hurt my feelings?”

  She said, “Yes, but I really need to tell you.”

  I said, “No, you don’t.”

  She went on to say she really thought I needed to know this, to which I continued to reply, “No, I don’t.”

  I eventually just walked away.

  My mom was surprised when I told her this. She said most teenagers and even adults would feel like they just had to know, but that I showed real maturity in just walking away. I didn’t think it was maturity as much as self-preservation! I know myself, and if I allow myself to hear negativity from others, it will really hurt me. It will bother me, make me want to change who I am, and make me scared to “stick my neck out.” I know God does not want that out of me, so I simply “shake the hate” and walk away when necessary.

  If we listen to hate, what will happen? It will eventually go to our minds. We will start questioning things about ourselves. We will wonder, Am I skinny enough? Smart enough? Athletic enough? Funny enough? And the list goes on and on. We will become very negative and probably try to bring others down with us. And that’s the last thing we should do.

  Some haters are going to hate no matter what. That happens in person, and it happens on social media. Our family gets some hate from people on social media, and my mom and I have learned to just accept what people say and not get down about it. Sometimes, we just laugh, shake our heads, and move on. One time I told my mom someone on social media said I looked like a man in one of my pictures. She said, “Well, someone said I look like Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants. Top that!” And we had a good laugh about it.

  Maybe this happens to us more than it happens to some people because we are on television. But I know it happens to everyone, especially high school students. Unfortunately, there is just a lot of hate that goes around! I have seen a simple comment about a football game lead to people posting incredibly hateful things to someone. It’s amazing what people can find to be hateful about.

  For some people, even trying to do the things I have mentioned in this book so far may get a little hate. Not everyone will like it when you start thinking positively and being happy, or when you begin to develop confidence. The only advice I have about that is to just be yourself, don’t let people intimidate you, and keep doing the right thing, even when it’s hard.

  TALK TO YOURSELF

  The easiest thing to do when people start hating on us or being unkind is to be hurt and to get angry with them. We are tempted to think about how mean they are and wond
er what is wrong with them. We can quickly accuse them of negative things as we try to defend ourselves.

  What we tell ourselves when other people start being hateful or disrespectful to us is very important. I have learned that the first thing I need to do is ask myself, “What would cause someone to say that?” I can’t ask that question every time someone says anything negative, because I do get some hate on social media, and I don’t pay attention to it because it comes from people I do not even know. I cannot obsess over people I have never met or even over very casual acquaintances, but all of us have to respect and value closer relationships enough to want to know what’s going on with a person if they are not being nice. If the person bothering me is a close friend, someone at school, or someone I know, I do wonder about their reason for being negative toward me. I think, Is that person having a bad day? Has something happened recently in their life, their family, or a relationship that would make them envious of me, my life, or my relationships? I wonder if something is going on in their lives—something that has nothing to do with me—and maybe they are taking out their anger on me. Or maybe, I think, they could be insecure and trying to bring me down with them. Some people cut others down to try to feel better about themselves. This obviously does not work. It’s one of Satan’s traps, but unfortunately it is one many people fall into. The most important question I ask myself is this: Am I doing something that would cause a person to say or do something hurtful to me? I really try to be nice to everyone, but all of us can accidentally offend people or hurt their feelings. We all make mistakes and do not always say or do the right things. When that happens, we need to be aware of it and honest about it. We should admit it and apologize.