some thoughts on compassion.

"Christ’s people feel compassion like Christ did, and they feel the strike to the stomach, they feel the pain in the deepest places, and they hurt and they bend over and they reach down and they reach out and their lives become cruciformed, shaped into the cross of Christ. Compassion isn’t merely a vague sense — but a feeling so strong that it causes you to bend: it shapes your body, your life, into a response. Compassion is the radical cross-shaping of a life." -- Ann Voskamp

When I was in college, my friend Lauren used to say that there are some people out there who feel the hurt of the world more acutely than others. She said that these sensitive people are very attuned to God's heart, but that, even so, they feel just an ounce of what God feels for His hurting children in this world. When I read the above quote in one of Ann's latest blog posts, I was reminded that though compassion can be painful at times, it is what motivates us to act.

Maybe that is why some people are both blessed and burdened by the gifts of compassion and mercy: maybe it is because God knows that these are the people who will do something about it. Maybe it is because these are the people who will open their hearts to allow Him to work through them to make a difference for others...