Dear Sister,
I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot lately, maybe because I am now a mom for the first time. The other day I was pondering the legacies she has left me. My mom is a tomboy, she is tough as nails! She gave me my love of watching football and playing every sport my skinny legs could handle. When I was growing up, she never would let me wimp out of anything and the only time we could stay home sick from school is if we had explosions out one end or the other. But when we were sick, she was the most compassionate person I knew… or maybe it was empathetic…or maybe gracious person I knew. Hmmm, which was it?
Certain words have different meanings but for some reason I have stored them in my mind as similes. For instance: yuck and eww, scared and afraid, even stinky and smelly. I’m sure they have their nuisances but often I find myself using them to illustrate the same point. I find that this same premise works with compassion, empathy, and even grace. I could easily substitute one for the other and use them interchangeably. However, there is a difference.
I found out recently that the Word of God uses the word compassion 48 times and most of the cases it is used in reference to God having compassion on Israel after they had sinned. In the New Testament the word was used mostly before Jesus healed, fed, or taught someone. So was my mom really compassionate with me when I was sick? I think so.
After looking up all of those references I can tell you that, Biblically, compassion seems to imply empathy (sympathy or understanding) with action. Dr. Tom Schreiner defines it as “expressing love and concern for those who are hurting and straying”. It’s not just a feeling; it’s an action! Compassion causes my mom not only to feel badly for my steaming temperature, but to wet a wash cloth and put it on my head to cool me down. She didn’t just keep an eye on me, she fed me toast and soup and made sure I had a blanket and the remote.
Grace is yet a bit different, even though I tend to use it as a sister term with compassion. Grace provides forgiveness and comes from the Lord. We as believers can be conduits of this grace through the Lord Jesus, but God is the author of grace. My mom gives me grace when I sin against her by forgiving me when I don’t deserve it and she can even give me compassion if the consequences of the sin so merits. This is similar to the father of the prodigal son who in compassion ran to his estranged son, clothed him, put a ring on his finger and threw him a party…and in grace, forgave him for squandering his inheritance and sinning against his father’s name.
So where does that leave us sweet sister? Christ is our example of compassion, he not only came to earth to understand and feel what we do as humans, but he died to pay the sin debt that each of us owes. Since Christ has shown us this perfect compassion, we can now show this compassion to our families and friends! By visiting an elderly widow and making her tea or by mowing the grass for a neighbor who is a single mom! By listening and crying with a child who had a bad day or perhaps embracing a friend or family member that has harmed us in the past with an open heart. My mom left me more legacies than I can count, but compassion was definitely one of them. What legacy of compassion will you leave your family?
Blessings from your sister,
Colleen