Compassion

Tag

July 30, 2020

Surviving Suffocating Layers of Difficulty

Proven often during a lifetime, ungracious hards pile up in layers, one heaping atop another. Many experience this with the pandemic. People already struggling with difficult situations had another layer added when the virus spread. Despite the dissension over aspects of Covid-19, we all agree on one thing: the results make life difficult. From sickness to unemployment to malaise. From nightmare schedules to loneliness to financial distress. As these difficulties pile more layers to already existing struggles, we begin to...

June 11, 2020

Silent Suffering

Can we hear them? Are the ears of our hearts open to the hushed groans and faint sighs of people suffering in silence? So many languish in daily distress as we rush by, faintly aware. Or oblivious. We press on, all systems go, while others endure on-going pain from a broken relationship with a parent, child, or spouse. Some are tormented with chronic physical pain. Others hide shame from emotional or physical abuse. Too many desperately try to breathe through...

August 15, 2019

Dealing with Repeat Offenders

Some days a hard develops just showing grace to rude strangers. To be forgiving to an acquaintance being “all about me”. To tolerate a slight from someone we respect. But. A real hard ensues and intensifies when needing grace and forgiveness, again, for one close to us. For one we have walked this journey with for years. Whom we know well. Who knows us well. We face the hard of showing grace when challenged with “another”. Another display of selfishness....

May 2, 2019

The Answer to a Profound Question

The question is: “Who is God?” Perhaps the foundation of all questions. A basic, yet critical inquiry that echos through the hearts of generations. Has this question lurked in your mind or passed your lips? A solid answer exists. A disclosure not coming from man’s understanding, perspective or experience. But straight from God. His self-proclamation. You want to know who God is? He proclaims in Exodus 34:5-7, “This is who I am.”  “Then the Lord came down in the cloud...

February 28, 2019

The Dreaded C Word

One need not journey long in life before the air is sucked from your lungs by the C word. Before you can get your bearings, the cancer roller-coaster sweeps you away through uncertain plunges, dark tunnels, with painful twists and turns. Tests. Biopsies. Scans. Surgeries. Chemo. Radiation. Horrible side effects.  Cancer has earned its badge to induce fear. Unwelcome, it tears at families’ hearts and lives, is no respecter of person or position; of age or strength. It dares to...

October 25, 2018

When God’s Heart Breaks

Sometimes God is pictured as a standoffish, look down from the heights, does not understand nor care about my world, being. But the following statement knocks the legs right out from under that perception. “When Jesus saw her, His heart broke.” (The Message) There are two whopping truths in this short verse, but to get the full impact, let’s set the stage. (Luke 7:11-17)...