Christ who is Compassionate

    

    This school year, the theme for chapel is "Christ our Greatest Friend". When I was thinking about who Christ as a friend is to me in the past year, it came down to "Christ our compassionate friend". When having compassion for someone, being completely present and there to support them is something we should strive for. We live in a world full of distractions, and the society we live in prioritizes productivity so much that we often forget to stop and look at those around us. What has God called us to? To love him and to love our neighbor. What does the American Society call us to? To be so overly productive and essentially become workaholics. 

    

    I will be honest that I often feel bad for resting because I perceive myself as being lazy, especially this semester when I am taking seven classes, working, and doing an internship and I can always be doing something. Something I feel like the overly productive lifestyle is preventing us from is developing deep loving relationships with our neighbors and even God. It is very easy to compromise our quiet time with God with what we are busy with or even just scrolling through social media. Sleep has been hard too as I am going from 8 am til midnight+ almost everyday. What does the over-productive nature of society have to do with compassion exactly? 

    

    Well, learning about compassion as a kid involved popular phrases like "try to walk in the other person's shoes". This may be part of what compassion is, but as Jesus demonstrates throughout his life is compassion comes from doing life with one another. Maybe there might be a moment where we someone's struggle, but we can really come to know that person and the biggest challenge in their life by doing life with them. Jesus knew the woman at the weel and everything she was going through, and despite the divide between Samaritans and Jews, he ministered to her. Jesus also knew the pain in the hearts of Mary and Martha when Lazarus died, and despite knowing that he would soon raise Lazarus from the grave, with compassion in his heart he wept. Jesus knew his power, but he also knew the pain in their hearts. 

    

    Jesus knows the deep pain that we may be dealing with, whether it is grief, depression, anxiety, etc, and he has a heart of compassion towards us. Jesus knows us and is patient with us in our struggles. I remember hearing all the time growing up "Just get over it", or "Let's not even talk about it, we don't need to let this steal our joy". Joy was so pushed, and I just learned to push down all the emotions I had. I thought that I had to fix myself, and was striving to fix myself. I became overally critical of my self. It wasn't until the summer before my sophomore year that I realized the need to change. What I felt I needed to get over and completely ignored started to come to the surface. I thought I would spend my life struggling with numbing from this stuff. 

    

    My sophomore year, I finally stepped into freedom. This is not the freedom I would typically think of involving dancing, smiling and celebrating like we would on the Fourth of July. This is not even the freedom talked about at the many worship nights I have been to. People always made freedom sound like fun and happy, but this freedom involved complete sadness, grief, and the anxiety of thinking of my identity. This freedom included so much crying, sleeping a lot, questioning my faith, and feeling at my worst. You may wonder, how is this freedom?  Well, it was freedom in the way that I let go of trying to prove myself. It was the freedom of taking off my mask of the joy I tried to have others percieve me as. It was the freedom of not trying to live up to the "wise beyond my years" that everyone would always tell me. It was the freedom to say "I don't know what God is teaching me in this season", "I don't have an answer" or simply "I just don't know and that is ok". I didn't feel right at the time, but this season of freedom from trying to prove myself to others brought me so much closer to God. 

   

    I learned from my sophomore year how in being a child of God, I don't have to have everything together. I can be free to cry when crying was highly discouraged as a child. I can be free to think about the memories of my childhood. I can be free to process and grieve. And in the same way this freedom has brought to feel genuinely happy and content in my life. Why? Because instead of hiding what I went through, I let it come to light. I let it come to light in a safe community of people who held me during my grief. I saw the love of God through those people. Additionally, I learned instead of trying to "just let go" of everything myself, I can come to Jesus with my pain. Matthew 11: () says "come to me all ye who are weary". It goes on to explain how we will be met with gentleness and rest for our souls. Jesus would not meet us with a "just get over it already", no he would meet us with a patient "I am here with you my child". 

    

    I love the song Run to The Father because no matter how far we feel from God or how much shame from the distance we travel from God, we can always run back to God. I remember at one point my sophomore year wondering "Why does God even love me?" and I have questioned this a lot honestly. I felt like I was in such a lost place my sophomore year, but during the summer, I realized the love God has for us and how he delights in us. God loves us simply because we are his. We don't have to do anything to earn the love of God because his love is what saved us. To be saved, we just need to accept his gift of grace and Run to him. It doesn't matter how far we feel from God because he has his arms open to us. 

    

    How should we as Christians then show compassion to others? Is it enough to just "walk in an another person's shoes"? I personally don't think that is enough. I see a common issue in the Christian Church being that we point out the sins of those who come into the church without doing life with them and learning of their struggles. Without knowing the potential pain someone may be in, we can possibly cause more harm superficially pointing out their sins without having empathy for what they may be going through. Additionally, we need to remember to look at ourselves in what we may be struggling with. Church should be a safe place for things to come to light rather than a place where we have to be picture perfect. Being compassionate like Jesus would be realizing that we are all created to be in community, love our neighbors, and support each other in everything we go through.