Charter for Compassion

"And another thing," I announced to The Hubby as I cooked supper, "I just hope they see how destructive their lifestyle is and how that affects us," I harumphed as I turned back to frying the hamburgers.

My husband and I have a few friends going through a pretty rough time right now. It's just life stuff, kids, house, parents, jobs, the usual. It's taken some of them down for the count pretty hard, and suddenly we've found our friendships on different terms than before--not the easy going, go watch a move and eat popcorn together kind of terms, but the terms where lots of forgiveness and grace is needed on both sides as we tread these new waters.

I tend to be the critical kind of friend, the kind who gladly will point out the minute wrongs going on in the other person's life; almost gleefully unrolling the interconnecting logic between the causes and effects of said choices. Even if I don't say it all, it's how I think.

I have my master's in literary theory, it's what I was trained to do.

My husband, on the other hand, is a builder, an engineer, a person who is always optimistically looking for solutions and ways to create new things.

So yeah. One of us is really good at stripping down while the other one really good at building up.

If we can ever get in sync, we'll be a dynamic duo.

As we talked about our friends and as I chittered my frustrations, I saw The Hubby getting quiet--always a sign that he's diving deep to bring up his thoughts.

I quieted and waited for his reply.

"It's interesting," he finally said. "One of the last time I spoke with them, I told them they were better parents than they thought." He paused. "It seemed to calm them down some."

That's my husband--the Great Diffuser.

As we continued to talk, my husband reminded me how all of us are harder on ourselves than anyone realizes. Few of us need to be told how wrong we are--lots of us need to be reminded that we're doing okay, that we are doing good things, even if we have some bumps along the way, even if we or those closest to us cause problems. Perhaps more than reminded of our wrongs, we need to be affirmed of our rights.

Such is the nature of compassion. Such is the nature of giving grace to each other.