Compassion

Compassion: (noun)

a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering
[dictionary.reference.com]

Yes, I am compassionate. Taking the Myers Briggs Personality test has been a blessing. I finally understand myself. 1% of the population has my personality type. No wonder I felt misunderstood, but I'm adaptable, so I accepted my weirdness and moved forward. I am Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving. Organization is not a strength of mine. I had started thinking I had ADHD as I have difficulty with executive functions. No, it's my personality not ADHD.

Here is a classic example of my compassion. My counseling was telling me to imagine a student who is an INFP (like myself) and how alone he or she must have felt. I responded by expressing my desire to identify that student among the ones I work with at my school. My counselor said that she was talking about me when I was growing up! She was trying to point out my loneliness caused by having one of the less popular personality types.

Famous people who were also Intuitive Feeling (NF) include Mother Teresa, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi. It explains why I have always admired Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. This summer I read a book about Mother Teresa. I wanted to move somewhere and start living as she did.

I am a compassionate person. I'm not comparing myself to any of the famous NF personality types, either. When I stopped believing in God, I was still compassionate. I felt hopeless. I could not fix the problems in the world. When I first accepted Jesus into my life, I felt like I had to fix everything. I started carrying the burdens of others on my own shoulders. I'm not strong enough for that; plus, I discovered my sin of trying to do Jesus' job. Yikes. I need a Savior!

Through pastoral counseling, God has shown me how to use my compassion in my prayers. I can see people's needs. I see beyond what my senses tell me. It's not my job to provide for their needs. That is God's job. I pray to God, reminding him of his promises and sharing the needs I see among his people. Fortunately, even if I assess their needs incorrectly, God knows their needs perfectly.

My spiritual life feels like a fireworks display. It has exploded, and I ooh and aww as I see God's responses to my prayers light up my life. Last year I started writing devotionals for a friend. I enjoyed writing them, but there was also an element of duty, an element of dread. It's obvious when I'm writing to cross it off my to-do list. Now, I see writing a devotional as my time with God. It's what I need to do to prepare for my day. On mornings that I start by reading a chapter from the Bible and writing about it, I feel joyful and see that joy spilling outwardly. This is what I had been praying about over the summer. I wanted to be God's empty vessel so that he may fill me with his joy and pour it out for others to experience.

Through counseling, I learned that I need to share all of my thoughts with God. When I start to feel anxious or when I want to check my e-mail or cell phone or when I want to eat anything in sight, I know that I'm hiding from my feelings. I'm reaching out to idols instead of God. On a Saturday, I practiced acknowledging my thoughts before my God. He made my path straight, just like he said he would in Proverbs 3.

Combining God's promises in the Bible with my compassion is what God created me to do. I'd like to think that there is more God wants me to do, but this is no small task, either. I take prayer seriously. I believe in it. The book of Mark is revolutionary. Jesus calls us to pray believing our request will be granted. When I pray for my brothers and sisters in Haiti, I remind God about his promises to provide for those who believe in him. I trust him to provide for his beloved in Haiti. He says he will. Sure the stories from Haiti are grim. Yes, people have died. God sees our broken world and weeps. God is compassion. God is love. God yearns to have a relationship with those he created. Yes, he wants a relationship with his messy, sinful creatures. He loves us despite our sins. He sent his son to die for our sins, so he could have access to us. Jesus bridges the gap between God and humans. I also pray for the little things with the same conviction. God provides all of our needs no matter how big and no matter how small.

I feel like a preacher. I feel like I'm standing on a soap box. Sometimes I feel like I cannot adequately explain all of my thoughts. I realize this may not make sense for the Sensing, Thinking, Judging personality types.

I am just sharing my personal relationship with Jesus. I delight in the fact that everyone has their own unique relationship with him. Everyone has their own unique needs and only God can provide for those needs.

It's like I finally understand what my pastor has been talking about for the past 3 years. When you're filled with the good news, you want to share it out of love with those in your life.

I'm not judging your beliefs or opinions. I understand what it is like to reject God. People who believe in Jesus are sinful creatures. We make mistakes; it's why we need a Savior in the first place. I also believe that God is bigger than our mistakes. He can heal our wounds. He can fix our mistakes. One day, God will come to alleviate all suffering. He will wipe the tears from our eyes (Revelation 21: 4), because he loves us so much. I hope I am able to wipe the tears of joy from his eyes. I almost dare not to dream such a thing, but I know that nothing is impossible through God (Matthew 19:26).

Triumph

You all make think I'm crazy; I accept that. Just please don't think I'm slovenly as I share this story.

God woke me up this morning, 15 minutes before my alarm was set ring. I would have preferred more sleep, but we both knew I had a lot of things to do this morning before work. I washed my sink full of dishes and then read Revelation 17. I wrote about verse 14 and e-mailed it to my spiritual spam group of people.

Then I started to make breakfast. A dear friend gave me kale last night, because she would eat it before she left town. I decided to make kale chips. When I opened my cabinet to retrieve a glass baking dish, I saw a LIVE cockroach on my cutting board above the dish I desired. I freaked out, grabbed roach spray, sprayed the mangy thing as it hid behind my larger glass baking dish with its blue cover resting over it, so I could not see where it was. I shut the cabinet door, deciding to wait until after work to deep clean and spray.

I re-enter my kitchen a few minutes later to see the cockroach on the bottom of my cabinet, exiting the scene of the crime.

I go to my room to grab a slipper to smash it. I put my sneakers on just in case I missed. Then, I said a prayer that I truly believed. I've asked for God's help before, but I did not truly believe he'd help me. So I prayed with Revelations 17: 14 in mind. Jesus, you triumph over evil. I do not know if this is evil, but I need you in this situation. When I returned to the kitchen, the cockroach was moving across my kitchen floor. I was moved by the Spirit to run up and stomp on it. I stomped multiple times as I needed it to become unstuck from the bottom.

I called my mom to share my victory. All the while saying, "Eww, I can't believe I stepped on a cockroach."

It was such a blessing to witness God take care of me. Jesus protects me from the evil and the cockroaches in the world. He knows my heart, but he also knows what I am capable of through his love. He dwells within me. I see Proverbs 3: 6 come true in my life. God keeps his promises, and the Bible is a book filled with promises.

Deeper understanding

I poorly maintain my blog; I have a section called Prayer: completely based upon Mark 11: 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

This verse scared me. I did not dare believe in it in case my prayer went unanswered. Sometimes I want things that I do not need as much as I think I do. I knew my sinful nature would interfere with the sincerity such prayer required. I was afraid to test it out.

Now, I think I actually understand it. In Nehemiah 1: 8-9, Nehemiah references a promise God made. God is always faithful.

When I pray, I remind God of his qualities and ask him to show up. I tell him that I need those things to be true. I pray in light of scripture. What do I know about God? What descriptions from the Bible do I see a need for in the lives of my loved ones? That is how I'm beginning to pray. With a biblical basis, I can believe that God will answer it, because of 2 Timothy 2: 13 if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.

But the greatest of these is love

After work today, I went to a local grocery store for a school fundraiser. I helped bag people's groceries. On the way out, people were collecting receipts. I literally just stood there bagging groceries for strangers. People thought I worked there despite wearing street clothes.

One woman gave me a hug after I bagged her groceries. It was a genuine hug, too, not one of those weak hugs.

I think this event was so moving for two reasons. The first is that I'm fascinated that acomplete stranger insisted on giving me a hug for something so common. I used to work at a grocery store; I actually liked bagging groceries. It's my version of puzzles (I hate actual puzzles). Take note I use the word "liked" after not having worked in a grocery store for 5 years.

The second reason is that it caused me to think about how often I hug others in my own life. There are some friends that I do hug every time I see him or her. Yet, in general, I do not hug others very often.

I often remember the movie Crash and the following line: "Graham: It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something" (imdb.com).

The woman who hugged me has no idea how much I appreciated that hug. So, it also makes me think about how I can never be sure the effect of my actions upon another person. I never know what I say will be remembered by my students. I know the phrases I'd like them to remember, but the phrases I consider unimportant may be the very phrases they remember for a lifetime. Of course, I'm assuming I say something important enough to be remembered in the future. Maybe it's not the words that are important but the high fives and the pats on the back.