Compassion as it is

Something i came across in one of Ann's blog entries (Ann, your writing uplifts me and is God-speak to me, thank you!). How timely. It's funny.. this morning i woke up with one thought going through my mind: God, will i learn truly learn what it means to love? because i don't think i really love people. I really want the best for them and i want them to know You.. but somehow, i don't think i have the purity of love that quickens to love and care unconditionally.

Ann wrote in one section: "Something I didn’t know… that the Latin root of the word ‘compassion’ means “to bear with” or “to suffer with” (com + pati).

Nouwen writes that, “to live with compassion means to enter
others’ dark moments. It is to walk into places of pain, not to flinch
or look away when another agonizes. It means to stay where people
suffer.” Compassion “holds back from quick, eager explanations” in the face of another’s suffering."

The last statement caught my attention. Compassion holds back from quick eager explanations in face of pain, not just others, but also of ourselves. If anyone lives in a perfectionistic spiritual world, where u need to be the perfect Christian, it is almost like a self-flagellation of the soul when we question ourselves of how we can let something like this get us down? we need to move on, and get with it. do what is right, and what is good. Which is not necessarily a wrong mentality, but where we do not give ourselves time to grief and to hurt, it is surely damaging to the true soul that is in us, whom God too created.

To deny the emotions that He too experienced, to cast aside the humanity that He made us in and chose to walk in so that He too would emphatize, casts aside the true compassion that touches the human soul. Can we experience the kind of compassion that God has for us? As 'Christian' as we may be? Do we know that he still has compassion for us.. no matter how long we've walked with Him? Only when we experience the compassion of God for ourselves, then perhaps, we can feel the same for others around us. And know that what they need in those moments of sadness and pain, is not always to have someone uplift that immediately, but another soul with the same spirit, that moves in love - a love that is patient, kind, does not envy, not proud, does not rejoice when evil triumphs..always trusts in GOD hopes for the future, perseveres together in trails and never fails.

I realised that my problem is that when i seek GOD, i ask Him what the next step should be, what am i to do next, as if the present is something to be gotten over quickly, that we should not dwell in pain. Just as Christianity is not a storm-free life, but rather storm-proof, where storms do come but does not destroy us, this too, is analogous of pain. As children of God that yield to His power and purposes, pain shall not and will not destroy us. Yet like storms, it also does not come and go immediately, there is a season, a period of time for which the pain must dwell. We do not necessarily come out completely unscathed, but we are not destroyed, in fact, not only are we not destroyed, we thrive, we are built up and we are strengthened. Not only to face the future hurts in our lives, but in the lives of other pp.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who
comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any
trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." - 2 Cor 1:3-5

"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any
comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any
tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose." - Philippians 2:1,2

He is the Father of Compassion. For that, I love Him. In The Betrayal of Self, the psychoanalyst Arno Gruen shows how “the actual source of our cruelty and callousness lies in the rejection of our suffering.”

We love, because He first loved us. May we never reject our suffering and miss out on the true grace and compassion of our Father, not only for our own lives, but for the lives of others.