Scripture Challenge: COMPASSION

Compassion... sympathetic consciousness of other's distress, together with a desire to alleviate it.

I have actually spent quite a bit of random time in the past thinking about this word.  Especially when I was in nursing school... is it not the word that should describe a Prudent Nurse?  It is what I have built my whole career around.  Ironically enough, I have never once actually considered it when thinking about God!  Even when singing "Great is Thy Faithfulness" in church, I have skipped right over one of the most important words!  And so, I spent some time reconsidering it this week, and it has been so encouraging. 

The first verse I came across (Lamentations 3:22, 23) just reminded me so much of our trip out west last summer.  We were surrounded by incredible nature and well, majestic mountains and glaciers.  I was literally overwhelmed by how big everything was.  How small we are.  God's creation.  All of it.  The verse fit the last picture I took as we were flying home.  From the plane window at 6am, Mount Rainier.

But what fit how my heart has been feeling these past few weeks, was Isaiah 54:10.  I have just been overwhelmed by life:  Middle School.  New Routines.  Work.  Sickness in our Family.  Family Members Far Away.  Rehearsals.  Swim Team.  Homework.  Not Enough Time.  Change.  To say I have felt "consumed" feels like an understatement.  So, I'm reading this verse and I can't help but feeling, and envisioning, God whispering it into my ear... "Though the mountans be shaken and the hills be removed...yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed".  And all I can think to say back is "say it again.  Please!  Tell me again!" and of course, He does.   Says the Lord, who has a sympathetic consciousness of my distress and has a great desire to alleviate it.

Wow.