Action Compassion

I am not a compassionate person.

Stop. This is not the time to elevate my ego by piling on the comments on my blog saying, "Annie, what are you talking about? You are so kind, sweet, etc." You weren't planning on doing that? OK. Cool. I'll go back to trying to be humble.

This morning I read a couple of posts about compassion, and it reminded me that for most of my life I have ached to be compassionate and put it as number one each day. And I fail and fail and fail. Or I do something selfless and feel great about it (feeling great is OK; just so you know I do believe that but it totally smashes all thoughts of humility!) and then go back to wanting to slap all the idiots out there.

Alright, stop again. I had to—even though I just read these beautifully expressed articles about what compassion is—look up the dictionary definition. Merriam-Webster online: "sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it." Right, so I guess I am compassionate. But I don't want to just have a "consciousness of others' distress." I want, what the articles talked about, action compassion. I want to put the desire into action. So let me start over.

I am not an action-compassionate person.

If I truly were then I would live it not just talk about it or maybe do nice things once in awhile. Compassion would ooze out of me. And if it did, then my son would sense it and just know about compassion because he would see me live it, speak it, know that I must think it. And that is the way, as I agree with what I read this morning, to help my son grow as an action-compassionate person.

What does it look like? I believe it needs to start with God because I'm too selfish on my own. God can show me when and where and how. Then I don't have to move to Africa, join the Peace Corps, or send Geddy on as many mission trips as possible before he graduates high school—unless they are God-led actions.

Sigh, but how do I know what God is calling me to do? Maybe he isn't calling. Maybe, as my husband was recently reminding me, I need to open up and look and listen for where God is working and join in.

So that's the new outlook I'm striving for. Look, listen, and leap, and put compassion into action.