compassion

Our pastor gave a sermon last Sunday talking about having compassion or a "my heart goes out" to others attitude.  I would have said the "before" me had this in spades, but listening to his sermon I discovered somewhat startlingly that the "now" me has a shortage.  I honestly hadn't realized it was missing in action or at least had not consciously sat down to think about it.

Let me clarify... the before me would have that "my heart goes out to you" feeling if you were going through a tough patch, were sick, were feeling blue, were upset about your job, kids, husband, whatever.  And here is me being totally brutally honest - so if you don't want to hear it, you better close the page.

The now me feels like saying... well you're not dead are you? your kids aren't dead are they? Of course I do not say that but being totally honest I think it quite a lot. Pretty harsh right? This is definitely not going to make me any new friends or endear me to the ones I currently have.  Apparently my compassion took a hike along with our "before" assumption that we would outlive our kids just because that is the way things are done. I am having an increasingly difficult time dealing with this.  It's not that I don't want people to talk to me, share their lives, confide in me, it is something that is broken in me that I can't seem to get past the feeling that the bigger picture is always as long as we are here on this earth we can make the choice to do something about what is making life unhappy.  I can't do anything about death.  all I can do is wait for my time when God calls me home. Here lies my frustration because I find myself comparing everything to this new standard that was forced upon on me - you're not dead are you? your kids aren't dead are they?  It seems the only people my heart truly goes out to anymore are those who have gone through or are going through the same loss as we did, be it from cancer, other illness and accident.

I then get frustrated because I feel like losing a child is the worse case scenario. I can't think of anything worse except losing more than one child. There is nothing I have that would mean anything in comparison to that. take my house, my meager belongings, my job, my marriage.  who cares - give me my child back.  Yet - I get up everyday, go to work, take care of my other kids, spend time with my husband. I try to look at everyday with thankfulness instead of a "poor me life sucks" attitude.  I try to be cheerful, smile.  I try to still find joy.  So here again brings me back to a severe lack of compassion because if I have lost what I feel is the worst case scenario, how can I be compassionate to someone else because I keep saying  you're not dead are you? your kids aren't dead are they?

I'm not sure where that leaves me.  Obviously this is something I need to work on.  I have not really talked to anyone 100% truly nitty gritty, down in the mud, good, bad and the ugly of how I feel about most things in over a year.  Maybe that's the problem. If I let out some steam, Mrs. Teapot wouldn't feel like boiling over if someone complains to me about having a hangnail.