If losing my dad did anything for me, it taught me empathy.
It’s not like I didn’t understand others before. Tragedy has simply given me the ability to understand another’s pain.
But it goes beyond understanding. Personally, empathy is also the ability to stand beside a hurting person as they heal. True understanding of another requires you to walk through the gates of hell with them. It’s not just pity or even sympathy. It is the willingness to be the rock of healing that brings another soul out of the waters of pain.
This kind of empathy has to be birthed. It’s not like one day you can suddenly understand what others are feeling.
How does empathy grow? It’s through travail. You have to experience pain before you can have the ability to help another human navigate the pain they feel.
If you allow the hurts of your life to teach you to be balanced, you have the beginnings of empathy in you. Walking beside others will help you develop the skill even more.
The challenge: to allow hardships to mold you into a healer. Don’t let your heart be hardened because there is evil and pain in the world. Be an example of empathy in this broken universe.