Compassion according to the dictionary – a noun “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken with misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.”
A few days ago my littlest one, Little Bubba, who is almost 5 years old, came calling for me and in my very mama tone I replied, “I’ll be right there.” Then I went on with whatever I was doing, once again falling into what I thought was more important than the call of my son. So instead of calling me again, he called his sister, B, being older by 3 years that makes her very important. She responded to his call and hustled out the door to see whatever it was that he deemed so urgent.
Within moments she came back inside, without a word to me, she went into the kitchen then back out the door. Less than two minutes later Little Bubba came back inside and demanded that I shut my eyes. Heaving a deep breath I did as I was bade. When I was allowed to open them, I was in for quite the shock. Right in front of my nose was a gallon size Ziploc bag with a very smallish, quite dead, brown rabbit. My absolute first response was, “How in the world did it get into the bag? What did you use to get it in there?!” B replied, “He picked it up.” Panicked I looked at Little Bubba and asked, “picked it up with what?” He gave me the funniest look and said, “My hand, Mama.” Oh My Word! So off I sent him to was with lots of bubbles and water.
I simply put it out of my head that this was a very small creature, created by the ultimate Creator and planned on disposing of it rather neatly in the outside trash can. To the look of horror on Bubba’s, my oldest son, face I quickly back peddled. We can just pitch it, no big deal, right? I missed Bubba’s response, but knowing him and his 11 year old self, he muttered something under his breath. Then to my utmost heartbreaking realization, my ever loving, sweet, soft hearted, all animal loving B looked at me with tears in her eyes and asked, “Why can’t we bury it?”
Then it hit me like God had reached down and slapped me….COMPASSION. Oh, yeah…..compassion. Where had mine gone? Pitch the poor thing like the garbage I had deemed it to be? Well, then if not for compassion I would have been “pitched” a long time ago (Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made.” NIV version). This was a lesson for me as well as a lesson for my children. I asked B again if she really wanted to have a funeral for the rabbit, with a tearful nod, I knew that this was more important than I was first aware. I opened my heart and did as I was led to do, this was not an opportunity to be missed.
I turned to Bubba and asked him to get his shoes on and grab the shovels from the garage. After wrapping up the rabbit in an old towel, I headed out to dig a hole in the back yard. For those of you that do not know, we live in Northwest Georgia. And there hasn’t been any rain for well over 2 weeks. And we don’t have dirt, we have this wonderfully fantastic stuff aptly called Red Georgia Clay….this stuff is no picnic for digging holes. But between brute force and pure determination, Bubba and I hacked our way through to make an appropriate sized hole.
Knowing full well that this was a lesson that I needed to learn, I also knew that this was a lesson needing to be taught. I spoke lovingly about my daughter to my son and appealed to his “when you are a daddy one day” heart. I spoke about compassion and that having a soft heart for all of God’s creatures was a wonderful thing to have. I tried to impress upon him that doing things like this, having a funeral for a wild animal, would mean the world to his little girl one day. That this is what daddies do, they take time to recognize their little girls’ heart. Hoping that he took it as intended, I praised him also for his guy strength because he helped his mama get the job done.
After a bit, I transferred the little rabbit to the old towel and placed it to rest. With the four of us holding hands I prayed that God would grow the compassion in my children’s hearts and I thanked God for showing me the compassion they all have. I was simply put upon this earth to guide them and I was so proud of them all that my heart overflows with the wonderfulness of the Lord. As we were praying I was touched by the word compassion, again. My heart was rewarded when it was made clear to me that I too was fortunate to be blessed by a compassionate God. One that cared so deeply for me that He gave up the one and only son he had……for me, (John 3:16 “For God so loved (had huge compassion for) the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believed in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life.”) and you.
We serve a magnificent Savior, a Compassionate Lord, one that would ease our suffering. A blessing to behold that same compassion in my children.
Have you been blessed to witness some wonderful gift of God through your children? I would love to hear about it.
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