Lent Words: Compassion

Following on from Mary Brack's Advent Words last December, Mary was asked if she would lead a similar study for Lent.  Unsurprisingly it's called Lent Words.

Mary asked me if I would like to write a post about one of the words and I chose today's word: Compassion.   This blog post also appears today on Mary's blog: Found on Brighton.

I have been following along with Mary's Lent Words and writing one verse each day in my EveryDay Journal.

Compassion

Read Psalm 103:8-14   &   1 Peter 1:8-9

My church doesn’t follow the church calendar very much apart from Christmas & Easter. So apart from having pancakes as close to Shrove Tuesday as I can, I really don’t have much experience of following a Lenten tradition. However I feel that the word Mary chose for today – compassion – is a year long, lifetime word. A bit like the ‘A dog is not just for Christmas’ campaign, I believe ‘compassion is not just for Lent’.

God is a God of compassion. One of His names is Rakhum which is sometimes translated as Merciful God but can also be translated as Compassionate God.

In Deuteronomy 4:31 (NASB) we are told ‘For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them’.

Psalm 103:8 (NIV) describes God this way: ‘The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love’.

Throughout the Old Testament we see God showing compassion to His people. We see people struggling through hard times but God always shows compassion and comes to their rescue. And then the most spectacular rescue of all is Jesus dying on the Cross for us. I find it really hard to grasp the depth of compassion God felt for us that He sent his Son to die for us. I could hardly bear to see my son hurt in any way and nothing that happened to him compared with what Jesus did for us.

We often use other words for compassion: pity, sympathy, feeling, empathy, understanding, care, concern, solicitousness, tender-heartedness, soft-heartedness, warm-heartedness, warmth, love, brotherly love, tenderness, gentleness, mercy, tolerance, consideration, kindness, humanity, kind-heartedness, benevolence.

But when we feel compassion (or any of those other words we use) we need to do something. We can give money to aid charities and think that is enough. But we need to act. We can show compassion in the way we live our lives, in the way we speak to and about people and in the way we pray.

We are made in God’s image so compassion is a trait we should embrace. 1 Peter 3:8 (TPT) says ‘Now, this is the goal: to live in harmony with one another and demonstrate affectionate love, sympathy, and kindness toward other believers. Let humility describe who you are as you dearly love one another’.

Everyone needs compassion.

It's not too late to join in with the Lent study.   Today is day 9 of 40. Find out more on Mary's blog.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

There is a free class available 'Redefining Normal' by clicking on the tab at the top of this post.  The class may be of interest to those who need to show themselves some compassion.

Toledo & Fremont

I have been on a 20 day visit to the United States.  During that time I took around 830 photographs and you will be pleased to know that I'm not going to share all of them with you today.  Or at any time really!

My plan is to share photos of various parts of my trip starting with Ohio.  My friend Mary lives in Toledo.  I flew from Birmingham to Dublin, Dublin to Chicago, Chicago to Detroit where Mary picked me up and took me to her house.

The next day we went on a walking took of Toledo - in particular the Warehouse District.  The sky was blue but it was quite chilly.  However I had taken clothes appropriate for the weather!

This was outside an art materials shop - which of course we visited!

I love this sculpture of children peeking through a whole in the fence to see inside the baseball stadium.

This is a stunning mural

Another sculpture - this time inside the stadium.  I took the photo through the railings.

I loved this mural of Venice

And this photo is definitely going in my Venice project sketchbook

The gate to the stadium.

Over the long weekend we also visited Michaels, Jo-Anns, Hobby Lobby and Dick Blicks.  What can I say!?!  We like art materials.

On Friday we returned to Detroit airport to pick up two ladies who had flown in to attend a retreat that Mary & I had booked to attend.  Refine {The Retreat} was held from Friday evening to Sunday morning at an old convent in Fremont, Ohio.  Mary wrote about her experience on her blog Found on Brighton.

There was an amazing art room which we could use almost any time.  Plus there was a two hour art session led by Christine Hiester

This is the journal page that I did.  I journaled on the page first and then painted over it.  Christine had provided various photos to use.

On our way home I wanted to see the river in Fremont.  These signs were along the path to the river.

Some interesting questions!  Presumably addressing some community point or behaviour.  Not sure really.

It was a bit of a murky day but that didn't stop these folks from fishing.

On my last day in Toledo we spent a relaxed morning doing arty things.  I worked on pages in my travel journal.

Mary took me to Detroit airport and I flew to Orlando for the next stage of my trip.  More about that on Monday.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice