When I Cry, You Cry, We Cry Together

When I was younger, one of my cousins said that my talent or gift was the gift of compassion.  I was like "Thanks Ate Al!!!" but I had NOOOOOO idea what compassion was.  Had we had something faster than MS DOS, I probably would have looked it up on the internet........Did MS DOS have internet?

Anyways, years later, I realized what she meant.  I can literally feel other people's pain.  It's like I'm connected to them.  When I used to go to school downtown I would always see homeless people asking for money, and I used to feel so guilty for not giving them any.  But I do remember hearing from somewhere that if I give them money they're just going to buy booze or cigarettes.  I settled for vowing to buy them a sandwich or coffee once every day.  Then I realized I was too shy and ended up just feeling bad every day I went to school because I didn't give the homeless guy something.  Maybe that's why I didn't finish..................

Well, here I am now, going through my own problems and issues, and yet, I still seem to feel huge amounts of love and compassion and grace for those who have hurt me the most.  I don't feel anger or hatred, I just feel love, compassion and grace.  I don't understand why.  My sister told me it was because I know how to love because I know God's love.  She's usually right (not when it comes to driving or directions) but in these aspects she's usually right.

When going through these hard and difficult times, I think that if I didn't have people to talk to, if I didn't have people to confide in, then I wouldn't be so loving and compassionate and gracious as I am now.  But I keep thinking to myself, if I had confided in someone that was giving me bad advice, would my vulnerability realize that it was wrong advice?  What if someone told me in my vulnerability that I the correct thing to do would be to empty out my bank account and give all the money to charity.  It seems like the proper thing to do, donating to charity is a good thing, and if I had to waste all my money, it better be at a charity, right?  But where's the logic in that?  What about my kids? and rent? and groceries?  In my vulnerability during these hard times, would I still be able to discern from logic and stupidity?

I feel that it is important during these vulnerable times to hold on to the truths in your heart.  And if you lose all those truths in the process of pain and anger, hold on to one because this one truth is constant: God.  God loves you, God cares for you, God is there for you and God will take care of you.  Hold on to those truths.  If you hold on to those truths, whatever people tell you, you will be able to know whether it is Godly advice, or not so Godly advice.

In addition to holding on to these truths, confide in people that believe in these truths.  You know that they will help guide you in the right direction.  Confiding in people who don't know God, and who don't know these truths or fully understand them, will lead you in the wrong direction and you will be lost and angry and in pain longer than you should have been.  Confiding in the people who believe in these truths will help you to move on from your problems.  They will help you realize what is going wrong in your life, and they will help lead you to God.  They know compassion, they know pain, they know what you're going through.  They've been through it.  If you think you are all alone in this world and no one understands you, it's because you haven't talked to people that have held on to the proper truths in life.  You haven't spoken to people that know and love God.  How do you deal with your problems?  Talk to a godly friend, don't bottle up your anger and emotions.  You're not going to heal.  Ignoring the problem doesn't fix it.  It pushes it further down until you explode and this will happen over and over and over again until you learn how to confide in a person or people who know the truth of God's love.

When I cry, you cry, we cry together.  It was a song from my teeny days that I loved because it was so true of me to feel other people's pain when they told them to me.  If you're going to cry, cry with someone.  But make sure that someone has the ability to point you in the right direction, the direction that will help pick you up from the reason you were crying and the direction that will help you learn from mistakes.  That direction is God.  Cry with someone who will cry with you and point you towards God.