HOW TO GROW IN COMPASSION
“My friends didn’t stick up for me.”
I was sitting with my younger cousin as she told me about the kid who called her names at school and how her closest friends turned a blind eye. She cried, and even though I tried to speak words of comfort to her, I knew in that moment she didn’t need to hear them.
I was once her age, so I know very well that arguments in elementary-school friendships are often easily resolved the next day. But seeing the sorrow in my cousin’s eyes, I knew my response needed to be more than “It’ll be alright tomorrow,” “Tell your friends you were hurt,” “Next time, just walk away,” or “There are always going to be mean people and we have to learn how to deal.”
Even if those are truths or helpful suggestions, she didn’t need them in that moment. She didn’t need proposed solutions, affirmations or assurance that tomorrow would be better. What she needed was to cry. So, I sat with her and we cried together.
SUFFERING
Without even going into the question of why there is suffering, I think we all realize it is part of our human existence. We have all undoubtedly experienced or watched a loved one experience pain, physical or emotional.
In a world that promotes an endless pursuit of progress and moving forward, we often just want a quick fix for suffering. We feel the need to pick ourselves or our loved one up. We propose 10 solutions to eradicate the pain. Or, even worse, we sit and dwell on the hundreds of things we think we should have done or said to avoid the mess in the first place. Like Mary when her brother Lazarus died, we might turn to Jesus and say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32).
We’re so quick to act: solve the problem, place the blame, run away. We’re afraid to suffer – myself very much included. Jesus taught us on the cross, however, to embrace our suffering and unite it to His own…. But how do we do that?
TO SUFFER WITH
This was the question I pondered for days after my cousin shared her sadness with me. In reflection, I was reminded of something a professor once told us in class: “I think the most important thing we can teach our kids is compassion.” I knew this was Christ’s answer to my question.
From its Latin root words, “compassion” literally means “to suffer with.” I realized that when we say we are uniting our suffering to Jesus’, it does not only mean continuing on in love of Christ. It also means allowing His compassionate heart to suffer alongside ours.
Suffering is unavoidable and it isn’t meant to be experienced alone. Christ is there with us every step of the way. He wept alongside Mary and Martha when they lost their brother (cf. John 11:35). He weeps with us when our hearts feel pain. And He invites us to take on that same compassionate heart for others.
Every time a loved one comes to us with their sorrow, we have the opportunity to be the image of Christ for them. There is a time to find solutions, to give affirmation, and to help our friends and family members get back up. Even so, those can never be our way of brushing away their sorrow. We cannot meet them an indifferent, “Well, life is hard.”
Rather, let’s meet them with a hand to hold, arms within which they can rest their heavy hearts, and tears cried together. Let’s not run away from the suffering – especially when we are afraid that we don’t have the right things to say – but meet it with compassion. Love looks into the eyes of the beloved and says, “I am here to share your sorrow.”
REMAIN WITH ME
Before His Passion, Jesus agonized in the garden fearful of his coming suffering, heartbroken at the pain his beloved creation must endure, sad to be leaving his world on its own.
He turned to the Father for strength. He did not ask his friends for solutions or lament with them that He could have done things differently and avoided death. He turned to them and said, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch with me” (Matthew 26:38).
My friends, every time a loved one comes to us with sorrow, Jesus is repeating his request. We are encountering God asking us to care for his beloved. May we respond unafraid to meet suffering with compassion, sadness with friendship, sorrow with love.
From my heart to yours,
