Worth the Hurt?--My Messy Beautiful

Compassion sucks.

OK, not so much the whole concept, but actually living it…that’s a pain in the you-know-what.

If you can watch Hallmark movies, Sarah McLachlan commercials, and YouTube videos of soldiers meeting their babies for the first time without crying, stop reading right now because this does not apply to you.

But weepy people—listen up! This is for you. If you’ve ever given money you didn’t have to spare because the person asking really believed in the cause, you know what I mean.  If you’ve ever taken the time to ask a frazzled-looking service employee how her day is going (and listened to the answer), you know what I mean. If you’ve ever laid awake in anxious prayer for someone else’s precious child, you know what I mean.

Compassion hurts. It literally means to suffer along with someone. And while tearing up at a cheesy commercial may not be a big deal, feeling deeply for the pain of others is incredibly exhausting. I know because I’m one of those weepy people and sometimes, I get tired of it. I wish, for just a little while, that I could JUST NOT CARE. That I could let other people’s problems actually only be THEIR problems, because clearly I have enough problems of my own, thankyouverymuch.

In the nonprofit world, there’s actually a term called “compassion fatigue.” It means there’s only so much that donors can take before they simply shut down and can’t stomach one more appeal for donations, no matter how urgent the need or how worthy the cause. It’s like when the fourth Girl Scout comes knocking at your door and your freezer still has Thin Mints from last year (ok I know that’s a ridiculous example, but I’ve heard that some people actually don’t eat them all the first week. Whatever.)

When we lived in Ohio while my husband Mike was in seminary, I worked in fundraising for an international health and development organization. The mission of our U.S. office was to connect people and congregations in the States with the work of our partners in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It was good work, and hard work, and holy work. And sometimes, it was downright miserable work. Not the “endless hours in a sweatshop” kind of misery, but the “sweet Lord Jesus, if I hold one more baby who has HIV and TB today, my heart is going to break into a million tiny pieces” kind of misery. When donations were slow or we ran into roadblocks in our work, my coworkers and I were doubly frustrated because not only were we failing at our jobs, but we were hurting along with these people dammit and why can’t we just get the money/supplies/medicine/love where it needs to be, when it needs to be there, is that too much to ask?!?!?! We knew the work was not about us, but sometimes the feet of the ones who walk alongside get tired too.

So many of you know this kind of misery, and you know how much it hurts. But you also know that the broken-openness of that kind of hurting is both excruciating and liberating. When your heart is shattered by overwhelming love, you get the chance to put it back together again in a new way. In the very same moment you are weeping for that sick baby in your arms, you are rejoicing because he just smiled the most dazzling smile and it was JUST FOR YOU. There is beauty in the brokenness. You are continually rewriting your own story with bits of pieces of truth from those you’ve connected with. You are made, and re-made, with increasing capacities for love, and that kindness you give away comes back to you a thousand times over.

In the Christian faith, we remember today as Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified.  Our God, the one who ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS HOW THE WORLD WORKS, was broken open, pierced through, and humbled to the point of death. This was the way God found to connect with his broken, messed-up people.

When we take time to sit with this story and allow it to break our hearts all over again, we receive a gift: our own story—everything we take to the cross—becomes God’s story. God’s story becomes our story. This is not new news--Mike’s been preaching it ever since the great storyteller Walt Wangerin crafted that beautiful phrasing--but it’s good news.  And that’s enough to make it worth the hurt for me.

This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!