I learned a long time ago that if I pray for patience, I invite trials.  But I am just gaining an understanding of what happens when you pray for compassion.  You gain two things: a great awareness of your own shortcomings as well as a great awareness of other peoples’ pain and suffering.   If I start thinking that I have it all figured out compared to other people, I am soon receive a reminder that I am a beggar before God (Mosiah 4:19).  Ah.  Now I understand the scripture that pride precedes the fall (Proverbs 16:18).

I’m trying to find a stance in relation to the suffering now made visible before me.  As an oldest child, type A, ambitious person, I am tempted to rush in and take over when others struggle.  However, I can’t rescue people from the hardships of their lives.  If I did, I would be unable to manage my responsibilities to my own family.  More importantly, I would deny others the opportunity to claim their own successes.  It’s an act of vanity on my part to try to rescue or fix someone else. True compassion means that I support them as they work out their salvation with fear and trembling before the Lord  (Philippians 2:12).  I can only stand as a witness to the growth they experience with the help of divine assistance.

My job is to be a cheerleader.  I can offer a listening ear. I can validate their feelings. I can articulate their strengths. I can show affection. I can communicate respect.  I can offer small measures of physical comfort such as a ride, a meal, a tissue or a hug.

I’ve also learned that I cannot make goals for other people.  Instead, I’m learning to listen to the goals they already have and then decide how my time and talents can be offered in support of their righteous desires.  For example, I might too easily think that a woman needs to quit her current job and pursue a different line of work that might be better for her time constraints or her physical limits. However, if she is currently working on goals to help her daughter overcome a bout with depression, I should instead loan her support there.   There is a time and a season for all things (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Right now the most salient scriptural text for my studies in compassion comes from King Benjamin’s speech. I have found myself reading and rereading Mosiah 4 in an effort to better understand the nature of compassion.  This chapter calls us to give our resources to others, to avoid judging them for their predicament, to remember our own dependence on God for mercy, and to acknowledge our own limitations—to not run faster than we can.

Almost every day, I find that I have to keep all four of these principles in balance.  It’s as though I’m standing on a pallet that’s set on a round rock. If I don’t keep all four of these concepts in mind, I start to lean and threaten to slide off. My new mantra? Give to Others, Don’t Judge, Be Humble, and Recognize Limits.

I don’t know when I will pray to put off another vice typical of the natural man in favor of adopting a virtue of the saints (Mosiah 3:19).  But when I do, I need to remember to steel myself.

Emily Dickinson says that “hope is the thing with feathers.” Initially, I was expecting that by pursuing compassion I would gain a lightness, euphoria and giddiness akin to infatuation. Instead, I might draft a poem where “love is the thing with weights.”  I feel a greater heaviness of heart as I connect more with other people’s pain in an effort to demonstrate compassion.  The silver lining is that I feel a greater dependence on God’s grace and mercy as I walk arm and arm with others on the pathway from mortality to immortality.  And every once and I while, I do feel a burden lifted (Matthew 11:28) because there is Another walking with us.

 

 


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