Walk a Mile in My Boots

I have had a thought running around in my head for the last couple of days. It is another one of those thoughts where you are never sure what to do with it....what to think about it....etc. So, I guess that I will just write about it and see where I end up with it.

In my few years of being a mother, I have experienced some days that have led me to be less than the mom that I desire to be. Can't say as I was always proud of my responses....in fact, I think my despair over my actions often times fed the problem. In those times, I found it amazing the comments that perfect strangers sometimes made to me. For some reason, they seemed to think that it was their responsibility to add to my guilt and frustration. My prayer, as my kids have moved through certain phases of their lives, has been that I would never forget what it felt like to be in those ugly situations. I don't every want to forget so that I can offer another mom empathy in those situations.

Empathy, as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, is identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives. This week I have been wondering if empathy is a learned response....or is it innate. I know that before I was a mom, I remember thinking that my child will never act that way in a store. Boy...did that thought come back to bite me in the rear end. Now, when I hear a child throwing a fit in a store, I often send a prayer up for the mom. I know what she could be possibly thinking and feeling...and she probably needs all the prayers that she can get at that moment. In this situation, for me, empathy was a learned response. I had to go through the experience before I could really understand.

Maybe my previous judgment came out of a lack of information. Out of my ignorance of the true nature of children maybe I thought the issue was in poor parenting and not out of a tired, hungry, free-willed, strong-willed child. Imagine that....kids have a mind of their own...and they'll express themselves any which they want to! Empathy, in this situation, doesn't come from experience but from knowledge.

Is it possible to be truly empathetic without either knowledge or experience? Maybe I am one of those dense people, who thinks she knows quite a bit but really doesn't, who can only truly empathize through experience. That is kind of the thought that I have been dwelling on this week.

Sometimes I feel like God puts a struggle in my life in order to learn empathy for another. I wish that I could prove that biblically......but right off hand I don't think that I can. As I have mentally dealt with a struggle within my household, God placed a friend in my path who is struggling with the same issue....but magnified. I felt a little convicted. When I am honest with myself, I think, in a small corner of my heart, I had passed judgment on her situation in the past. As I type that out, I find myself strongly convicted. As I listened to her struggle last week, I finally began to understand her struggle that she has talked about for 3 years. Yet, it wasn't until I had nibbled at the experience in my own life, did I really began to empathize with her situation.

That thought leaves me in a quandary. How do I get past that very human trait of observing someone's situation and only looking at it through the glasses of my own experience? How do we really learn empathy? Can we really only empathize if we have had a taste of the experience ourselves? I know that when I take the time to imagine what it would be like, I can begin to imagine the feelings and emotions of another. I guess that I need to learn to just slow down and do just that.

Here is my one last, heretical thought: maybe if I learn that lesson of empathy, maybe God will spare me some trials in my life. I'm pretty sure that isn't how God works.