What do you think of when you hear the word compassion? How do you define it? The Latin meaning of the word is "co-suffering" or "to suffer with". That definition makes it more of a verb than a noun--a word that requires action. Compassion comes in many forms and doesn't look the same for every person or in every circumstance. You can show compassion to for a friend by simply offering a shoulder to cry on...sometimes crying with them in that moment. You can show compassion by lifting someone up in prayer and asking for God to act and provide comfort in their life. You can show compassion by jumping in with both feet, running to someone in immediate need rather than away from them--performing CPR during a medical emergency, offering the clothes off your own back to warm them or to stop the bleeding, entering a burning building to find that scared child, or taking a meal to a family that is so overwhelmed with grief that they can't pause to care for their own physical needs. Compassion requires action. But in order to act, we have to let it in. We have to open ourselves up to feeling the very suffering that the other person is experiencing. That's not always easy. For some, it's more intuitive than for others. But we have a way of hardening and protecting ourselves over time. Life is hard and we learn early on that growing a thick skin is the way to get through this life and all its difficulties. But living a thick-skinned life, if you approach people that way, is an empty life. We have no greater example of compassion than Jesus Christ who gave His entire life even to the point of suffering and death, out of compassion for all of us.
We may not be able to personally touch the lives of those suffering in other parts of the world, but we CAN share with them the message of the extreme compassion their Savior has for them. To help that message reach those who haven't yet heard, visit https://www.mygfa.org/makeadifferencenowblog/.
The truth about compassion? It's a verb.
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