The Art of NOT Scratching . . .

I lay still, ignoring the itch on my foot. A clump of cloth in my shirt pressed into my back. A hair near my face drifted lazily in the breeze from the air conditioner, grazing my cheek. Still I refused to move. No scratching, no brushing away the irritating tickle, no straightening my shirt. Then a bug landed near my eye. I tried to blink it away, but it crawled toward my mouth. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I flicked it away, furiously scratching and wiggling away my discomforts.

I had failed.

My intent had been to step into my daughter’s shoes. Rachel couldn’t control most of her movements, so the simple act of brushing a bug off her face was beyond her. She couldn’t form words, so even telling, much less showing, us what itched, tickled, or ached didn’t happen. So if a hair drifted to lightly brush her skin, she simply had to tolerate it.

It wasn’t the first time I tried to feel what she felt. When she was sick, we often had to deep suction her, so I did the same thing to myself, running that tube through one nostril down toward my lung. Yeah, it hurt. We still had to do it to keep her healthy, but we worked hard to sooth her afterward.

And my little experiment in stillness made me pay more attention to her environment. None of us could watch over her 24/7, but we tried hard to watch out for pressure points, insuring that she wore soft clothes, and that her skin stayed clear.

Why? Because we loved her. We knew that she’d have to hurt sometimes, but we wanted to ease that in any way we could.

Compassion. It grows out of an awareness of the suffering of others and the sometimes overwhelming desire to alleviate it. It’s not a special gift, but a deep, ingrained part of simply being human. And as believers, we are called to it, to reflect outward the same compassion God has for us. Passages that detail His compassion for us abound throughout Scripture, and Paul reminds us that what He has done for us, we should do for others. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3:12 NIV).

Paul knew compassion can change lives. And with enough of it . . . the world.