I know how you feel

Empathy is a very powerful thing. It is more than sympathy (where we express how we feel about something that has happened) although that is powerful itself. Empathy is where we are able to feel how someone else feels. We can’t know exactly how anyone feels, but when we are able to be empathic we feel some of what they are going through. Sometimes it is almost physical!

I was with someone yesterday who was very upset because they had had something (a possession) stolen. At first I was disappointed for them and didn’t want them to be upset. I was also annoyed that someone had made them sad. Then I began to feel sad myself. I was upset because of the person’s loss and sadness. I don’t know whether it helped them but because I felt some of their sadness it made my praying more real, somehow.

It reminded me of a couple of lines we will be singing a lot in about 2 months’ time:

And he feeleth for our sadness,
And he shareth in our gladness.

(Once in Royal David’s City)

Because he has experienced human life we can be confident that Jesus knows how we feel. It’s not that he is distant or remote and is unable to know us inside out anyway, but we know that he has been there too. He empathises!

The theft took place at a school and while I was with the person I tried to make them feel better by telling them my experience of having something stolen at school. It was during a PE lesson. When I got back to the changing room I found that my trousers had been stolen!

Very thoughtfully the PE teacher, when I told him what had happened, gave me some banana-yellow tracksuit trousers from the lost property box (eurgh! – at the colour and the lost property box) and made me go around all of the classrooms asking if anyone had my trousers. I can’t imagine them owning up and it did not make me feel good. I cycled home (in my orange waterproof overtrousers) and told my Mum what had happened while I went and retrieved a spare pair of school trousers. Mum was not happy with what the school had done and I will leave the rest of the story to your imagination. Not sure how much empathy there was!