Quotes About Compassion

forgiveness is an act of faith.

By forgiving, I release my own right to get even and leave all issues of fairness for God to work out.

Church is a place where I can say, unashamedly, I don't need to sin. I need another sinner.

the same answer from suffering people: it matters little what we say — our concern and availability matter far more.

if I care to listen, I hear a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved.

Lewis Smedes points out, "The first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness. . . . When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.

the same answer from suffering people: it matters little what we say — our concern and availability matter far more. If we can offer a listening ear, that may be the most appreciated gift of all.

He had not come primarily to heal the world's cells, but to heal its souls.

The only thing harder than forgiveness is the alternative.

Dr. Brand said, in a comment that has always stayed with me, "A healthy body attends to the pain of the weakest part.

As Christ's body on earth we are compelled to move, as he did, toward those who hurt. That has been God's consistent movement in all history.

by embracing grief and standing beside the hurting person, we can indeed aid another's search for meaning.

Where is God when it hurts? I have often asked. The answer is another question, Where is the church when it hurts?

the down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome among his followers. What has happened?

Perhaps the greatest way to give suffering people time is being patient with them — giving them room to doubt, cry, question and work out strong and often extreme emotions.

God does some of God's best work with people who are truly, seriously lost.

Every hour or so she asks how I'm feeling, and I hear her giving reports on the phone to her friends. "He's doing better today. A little trouper, doesn't complain at all." I like hearing her talk about me, as if I matter.

Wounded people who have been broken by suffering and sickness ask for only one thing: a heart that loves and commits itself to them, a heart full of hope for them.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep," advised the apostle Paul (Romans 12:15), wise words that apply especially in times of crisis.

In a letter to his brother, C. S. Lewis mentioned that he prayed every night for the people he was most tempted to hate, with Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini heading the list. In another letter he wrote that as he prayed for them, he meditated on how his own cruelty might have blossomed into something like theirs. He remembered that Christ died for them as much as for him, and that he himself was not "so different from these ghastly creatures.

He added a chilling remark, "As a gay man, I've found it's easier for me to get sex on the streets than to get a hug in church.

It makes a huge difference whether I treat a nonbeliever as someone who is wrong rather than as someone who is on the way but lost.

a suffering person needs: love, and not knowledge and wisdom.

Katherine of Aragon was speaking out for the women of the country, for the good wives who should not be put aside just because their husbands had taken a fancy to another, for the women who walked the hard road between kitchen, bedroom, church and childbirth. For the women who deserved more than their husband's whim.