Feeling Someone Else’s Pain….

Empathy, what exactly is it? Definitions now a days are being changed and the meaning of words holds less value. Reading through Hebrews chapter 13 you come across verse 3, which gives the best definition of empathy I’ve ever come across. Empathy is feeling someone else’s pain. It’s allowing all your senses and emotions to travel through another’s experience as if it was your own. My wife has this ability. She literally can feel the pain and sorrow someone else is experiencing, so much so, it affects her physically. Some may call this a gift, while others call it a curse. Either way, she can experience other’s pain to a level that brings to life the compassion that the Bible talks about. Now that’s a real gift: to be able to walk in someone else’s shoes, without being tied to the consequences. It helps transform a calloused soul into a tender-hearted, ready-to-follow, loyal disciple of Jesus. Empathy is a gift from God, and it’s only developed through walking in someone else’s shoes.

3 Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies. Hebrews 13:3