“Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.”  I Peter 3:8

Sympathy. It comes from the combination of two Greek words literally meaning “to suffer with”.  And that really is the ground floor as to how this critical commodity is developed in our lives. Sympathy is best learned in the classroom of actual suffering where one’s heart is actually broken and actual tears stream down actual eyes. Where real pain takes up real residence in real lives and leaves real scars as ongoing reminders of its real visitation.

But those scars can leave us different people than we were before. Wonderfully different. If we can manage to not let bitterness set in, we become less judgmental. Less cocky. Less hardened to others' plights. More compassionate. More understanding. More humble. I love the way Adelaide Anne Procter puts it in her poem, “Judge Not”:

“Judge not the workings of his brain,
And of his heart thou cannot see.
What looks to thy dim eyes a stain,
In God's pure light may only be
A scar brought from some well-won field
Where thou wouldst only faint and yield. “

Nothing knocks the stuffing out of arrogance and judgmentalism  quite like pain. Pain of being unfairly accused. Pain of watching loved ones suffer. Pain of regret over personal sin and failure. Pain of seemingly unrewarded faithfulness. Pain of betrayal by those closest. On and on it goes. Real pain leaves us with real scars. But those real scars serve to rein in our critical spirit toward others probably more than any other means. Scarred saints see other’s stains differently than most. They are so keenly aware that “what looks to thy dim eyes a stain” may very well be a battle “scar brought from some well-won field, where thou wouldst only faint and yield.” Pain not only brings scars. If allowed, it also brings what we need most – brokenness. And as well, sympathy. Something that the world needs to see far more of from those of us calling ourselves Christ-followers.