Self Care: If I Have Not Compassion

As I clean out my MOPS bag for the year I run across some of my meeting notes. To toss or save?  {Hear me out, it's good stuff, but there are just so many papers!}

 In there, amongst the folded and crumpled papers,  a typed 1/3 sheet of wisdom and questions to ponder.  It's as if the speaker KNEW how deeply I needed the thoughts, and might not take the moment to take notes right then and there.  It's as if she knew I'd tuck it away in my bag and pull it out the very day I needed it most.  Okay maybe SHE didn't know all those things, but My God did.  He knew.

That gracious speaker shared a quote which I bolded below, but here is the whole shebang.  Read it, think about it, and find yourself blessed by the words and the emotions they cause.

If I Have Not Compassion

Amy Carmichael IF I HAVE NOT compassion on my fellowservant, even as my Lord had pity on me, then I know nothing of Calvary love. If I can easily discuss the shortcomings and the sins of any; if I can speak in a casual way even of a child's misdoings, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I can enjoy a joke at the expense of another; if I can in any way slight another in conversation, or even in thought, then I know nothing of Calvary love. If I can write an unkind letter, speak an unkind word, think an unkind thought without grief and shame, then I know nothing of Calvary love. If I am afraid to speak the truth, lest I lose affection, or lest the one concerned should say, "You do not understand," or because I fear to lose my reputation for kindness; if I put my own good name before the other's highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary love. If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I myself dominate myself, if my thoughts revolve around myself, if I am so occupied with myself I rarely have "a heart at leisure from itself," then I know nothing of Calvary love. If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or twentieth); if I cannot take the first without making a fuss about my unworthiness, then I know nothing of Calvary love. If I do not give a friend "the benefit of the doubt," but put the worst construction instead of the best on what is said or done, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I take offense easily; if I am content to continue in a cool unfriendliness, though friendship be possible, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If a sudden jar can cause me to speak an impatient, unloving word, then I know nothing of Calvary love. For a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, however suddenly jolted.

If I say, "Yes, I forgive, but I cannot forget," as though the God, who twice a day washes all the sands on all the shores of all the world, could not wash such memories from my mind, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

How can you move towards the Lord's kindness so that you may show others LOVE, and not leave them tip toeing around you looking for a warning label? 

There is NO shame in admitting the truth.