The power of compassion

In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, many people have been asking the inevitable question, "Where is God?"

C.S. Lewis asks this question in his book A Grief Observed. "Meanwhile, where is God?... When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence."

There was a time when, in the presence of those who suffer, I would blurt out pre-rehearsed lines or sophisticated apologetic solutions that hung in the air like lead balloons and had little or no impact on the recipients.

Then it was my turn to be on the receiving end. Lying desperately ill in hospital, many visitors came and went. Bible verses galore piled up at my hospital bedside. Don’t get me wrong - the fellowship was a blessing. It’s just that I couldn’t make sense of my suffering. Then a distinguished senior clergyman whom I worked with came to my bedside, said nothing, but held my hand and wept. Something broke inside me, and I wept to. It seemed to me that somehow God was validating my suffering. His tears joined with mine.

Compassion is a powerful thing. How come we are so poor at demonstrating it?

So much of the world’s suffering is self-inflicted. But God save us from indifference! As the white spot fades on the TV, and images of Haiti, and the slaughter of innocents in Iraq, disappear from our screens, the truth is that the suffering of this fractured world doesn’t disappear. It goes on and on.

You and I must never give in to compassion fatigue, or become de-sensitised to the pain of God’s world. God give us back our tears, and grant us the naivety that compels us to compassionate acts of mercy over and over again. Maybe our own brand of suffering can be salvaged and turned into something more powerful than we could ever hope for.

Where is God in our suffering? I don’t know all the answers, but I do know that a God of love has put me here for such a time as this.

Eddie Lyle, Open Doors, from his blog
http://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/eddies_blog.php#050210