Verse of the Day - 1 Peter 3:8

Sympathize with each other.
~ 1 Peter 3:8 (NLT)

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I'm not a dog person. In fact, I'm not really an animal person. I'm perfectly content to have no attachment to furry friends, even though the puppy in the film "Marley and Me" did make me kinda wish that maybe sorta I had a dog like that. Dog -- that's the operative word. There is no room for the word 'puppy' in my vocabulary, and certainly no room for it in my house. All the chewing and pooping and peeing and whining and yelping....oh my goodness, it makes me grit my teeth. :-\

BUT -- there are many who absolutely love their pets! They're like family to them, and no expense is too great to keep them around and make them happy, to give them a quality of life to the very end. And when they must pass away, it is devastating. Like losing a child. Or a best friend. And the grief can be overwhelming. Such was the case for one of my co-workers recently.

For those of us who aren't pet people, it's difficult to understand grief over the loss of a pet. We can simply say, Gee, too bad. Just go buy another dog. Seen one, ya seen 'em all, right? But that isn't what God calls us to do. He desires and instructs us to be sympathetic to others. Show some compassion, even when a person's situation seems foreign to you. Rather than say, I just don't get you, try listening to that person with a loving heart. Hurt for them when they're hurting, regardless of why they're hurting. It really doesn't matter anyway, does it? When someone comes running into a hospital ER with a bloody knee, the nurse doesn't say, Well, if you got that injury from softball, I will so help you, 'cuz I play softball and I know how it feels, but if you got that injury from running out in the street, well then, I just don't know if I want to help you, 'cuz you should've known better than to run out in the street...

Either way, they're bloody and in pain, and they need help.

So I spent my lunch one day recently, letting my co-worker talk about his beloved dog. Though I couldn't empathize, I could sympathize. Tears came down as he talked about what a good dog he was, and just how hard it is in the mornings these days, grief just washing over him. Afterward, he said it helped to talk about it and thanked me for listening. I'm not a pet person, but I am a people person.

Sympathy . . . do we give it, even if we don't necessarily "get it"?

God calls His children to display compassion for people, because people need love and care, and God loves and cares for them. How will they sense and know His love, unless God's children dish it out?

Love,
Joelene