By Camille Brooks
Have you ever needed a miracle?
I have noticed in the scriptures that each time the Savior performed a miracle, He first felt compassion for the individual.
When the two blind men begged the Lord for mercy, “Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him.” (Mathew 20:34)
If we want the Savior to open a wayward child’s eyes, or raise a troublesome marriage from the dead, or bring healing to a contentious neighborhood or community, we must also have compassion for others.
When we are wronged and feel hurt, the natural thing is to hurt back. It takes courage to pause, think and say to ourselves, I am going to choose compassion instead. Mother Teresa said, “The antidote to anger is compassion.”
Years ago I had an opportunity to put that antidote into action, to practice compassion. A neighbor came to the door with a petition she wanted me to sign regarding our children’s bus driver. She wanted to get her fired.
The bus driver was not a particularly happy person. In fact, she was quite grumpy. Most of the children on the bus did not like her. Things escalated when some of the boys were disrespectful to her. She became upset and kicked the boys off the bus. That infuriated their parents. Their solution was to get her fired.
With several children of my own riding the same bus, I also had concerns. However, I did not feel signing a petition to get her fired was the right answer. I declined to sign it.
I decided to exercise compassion for them. I called the school superintendent and explained the whole story. I suggested there might be a better way to handle the situation. Instead of having her fired, I asked if he would consider teaching her how to be a “good” bus driver. Perhaps she knew no other way to respond except with anger and harshness.
When my children got home from school that day I explained a little of the situation and suggested we think of ways we could show love to the bus driver. I felt the best way to kill an enemy was by loving them to death. I encouraged the children to look for the good, to find any act of kindness shown by the bus driver.
As we brainstormed we realized that, during the coldest parts of the winter, she had picked up our children at our house instead of making them wait at the freezing cold bus stop. Wow, that was really kind!
We wrote the bus driver a thank-you note identifying all the kind things we could think of and took it to her with some banana bread. I asked my children to smile and say hi and thank you to her and to look for the good each day they rode the bus. We prayed for her and believed that good things would come of our simple efforts.
Our family got to witness a miracle! The bus driver transformed into the happiest, kindest bus driver my children ever had! In time, everyone in the neighborhood came to love her. The compassion and kindness shown to her was contagious. Just as the warm rays of the sun spread and reach everyone, so did acts of compassion.
If we choose anger instead of compassion we will likely never see the miracles we are hoping for. And we all need miracles! Faith in Jesus Christ without compassion for others, is like faith without works. It is dead. Without faith and without compassion, there will be no miracles. We will be left to ourselves and our own devices to overcome our problems with others. The adversary knows this, so he strives to stir up our hearts with fear, anxiety and anger. With these negative emotions raging within us, compassion flees.
I strive to practice compassion every day. (And if I forget, I pick myself up and try again. It is a daily process, not a one time event). I find it makes me happy and solves nearly every problem I encounter. When a friend, neighbor or family member becomes snippy, I pause, and remind myself, I love them. And I know they love me, too. I can accept they are struggling and are fighting their own battles, which I may know nothing of. I then pray for them and strive to walk in their shoes and discover the underlying feelings of their behavior. I then express my love for them and show compassion for what they are feeling. The result is usually the same as the two blind men, “Immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him.”
When darkness covers the eyes of those around us, we can dispel the darkness and open their eyes with compassion, as the Savior did. Miracles do happen, but only if we exercise faith and do the works of compassion first.
