Too

Too

Too—such a great word. It encompasses so much, and convicts so much. It acknowledges so much and shares so much blame. It shares responsibility. It gives credit. It is also one of the hardest words to add at the end of a sentence. You know what I mean—“My project was great, and his was great…too.” Or “He hurt me and I hurt him…too.”

So last night I had coffee (nectar of the gods, to some people) with my friend Alissa. She has been going through a difficult time in her personal life and we were talking about developments there and the lack there of in my life. Alissa has been a dear friend of mine for years. I met her when I was first out of college and going to Hunter Street Baptist Church. At first we were casual acquaintances, but over the course of serving in ministry together at the church, she became one of my closest friends. I missed her dearly when I took a job at SFS and moved to Korea. But, every time I was home, she was the one friend I could count on to remember me and make it a point to catch up. During our chats, she very often gave (and continues to give!) me food for thought.

A resounding theme in our conversation last night was the idea of compassion. I have always thought of my self as a compassionate person. But I realized after a few minutes that at the time in my life when I needed to show compassion the most, I did not. I chose selfishness—I chose to nurture my own hurt over comforting someone else’s pain. It was a complete shock to my system. But more on that later.

Compassion. That is such a hard concept--we all think we have it down pretty well, but in reality, do we? What exactly is compassion!? According the secular world, compassion is taking into account another person’s pain and trying to alleviate it. Because I was created a spiritual being, I think there must be more to it. In Matthew 9, Jesus felt compassion for the lost that he saw around him because they were “without a shepherd (vs. 36).” Then Jesus commanded his disciples to act on that—he said “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest." They were commanded to first beseech God on behalf of the lost, but also, I can’t help but wonder if an unspoken command was given there too—to go out and begin to reap the harvest. Compassion is not without command. Jesus didn’t have a personal relationship with these people, yet he loved them enough to feel true compassion for the lost. I think in the spiritual realm, compassion is not just taking into account someone else’s pain, but taking someone else’s pain. It is not about considering it and being moved by it. It is FEELING the pain and moving to action, regardless of our own hurts, fears, or concerns.

A few years ago I was in a relationship that I now know to have been bad for not just me, but him, too. Of course, at the time, I could NOT see it, even though most of the people around me were yelling “RUN!” The ending of that relationship was terrible. I was hurt more deeply than I have ever been hurt before. I never (for one little moment) thought that Tim was hurting, too. I remember, now, sitting in my living room, in tears. Tim was telling me over and over again that the person he showed the night before was not the person he really is. He, too, was broken in some way. Maybe not as deeply as I was, and maybe not for the same reasons. But he was broken, too. I did not have the monopoly on pain. He needed me to put aside my selfish hurts and say to him “It’s OK..” and I couldn’t do it. It was easier, in the short run, to have a difficult, nasty ending to our friendship than to deal with it and let it take its natural course.

Tim said that he was sorry. I wish that I’d had the courage to say that I was sorry, too.