The Curse of Empathy

Heartless is not an attribute I would want for myself, but sometimes I think there has got to be a middle ground between that and where I am. I have certainly experienced times of absolute apathy. I am sure there is nothing worse than that – the inability to feel at all is something I would wish on no one. I believe apathy is depression’s closest friend. It does not feel pain, but fails to see a need for existence. Once the desire to live is gone, the struggle to live ends. I know people like this… it is almost hard to describe such a one as actually living at all… they are more like dead men, walking.
Now empathy is the exact opposite of apathy. You might be thinking that if apathy is the worst of all possible experiences, then empathy, being it’s opposite, would be the best. But I can tell you from experience that is not the case. They are merely opposite ends of a spectrum, in which “ideal” lands somewhere in the middle. If apathy feels nothing, empathy feels EVERYTHING… the ability to feel the joy, and even more so, the pain of others so acutely, it might as well be your own. I can’t even count the number of times I have lain awake in bed, tears streaming down my cheeks as I pray for my friends and family. This last month has been particularly hard, partially because I am so far away from the ones I love and completely unable to help them in any tangible way, and partially because it has been a particularly difficult month for so many of my friends and family members. It seems like each day brings more news of depression and suicidal thoughts, of heartache and loss, of families falling apart, and the loneliness that accompanies it all. I pray and pray and yet the pain and sorrow seems to increase. This morning I got on Facebook and read a note that one of friends my friends wrote about her cousin, who just died in a car accident this week. I’ve never met the young man, whose life was ended so suddenly, but in reading my friend’s words, her pain was so real to me, I couldn’t hold back the tears.
When I got to my office this morning, I found myself singing a song I hadn’t heard in years:

When the weight of the world is on my shoulders
And my branches are broken,
I will remember you…
Oh, Lord, my God, You walk beside me
Through my laughter, the tears…

And it suddenly struck me that although I was praying for all these people, I have still been trying to carrying the weight of it all around with me rather than “casting my cares on Him who cares for me.” Christ knows what it is to carry the weight of the world on his shoulder… He carried not only the pain, but actually paid the consequence of all our sin on the cross, bearing OUR shame so that WE might be found guiltless before God. What an amazing thought!
It doesn’t change the fact that I feel the pain of others, but a dose of perspective goes a long way. The cross I bear is so insignificant compared to His cross and the pain HE bore for ME.