Christ-like compassion...

Looking around at all the different faces in the waiting room today...most of them wrought with worry and sadness...the feelings they wear in their body-language revive memories of my own from two years ago that I've wished, at times, to be rid of.
It's hard not to wonder what their scenarios are. Are they waiting here, stewing over a loved-one who is just at the starting line of a journey like mine? Or perhaps waiting for their OWN name to be called? No matter......it's impossible for me to not feel some of their pain.
Aaron and I were just discussing this on the drive up--how compassion is deeply implanted in us when we've BEEN through a significant life-trauma. Whether or not you want to feel it, it's part of the heart-transplant this journey leaves you with.
I look around and actually feel ENTRUSTED with the responsibility to lift these people in this waiting-room up to the Lord. Soft phrases spoken as they send their loved ones off, saying...'I'll be right here when you are done.' Though I might not speak it to them, I find myself worried for their loved one perhaps just as much as they are...a complete stranger is deeply concerning to my heart.

But isn't this a Godly result come from such a dark tribulation?
Feeling a true, unkempt love for people around you--a love that comes from a source far beyond yourself. Isn't THIS how God loves His Church? Isn't this how a parent loves his/her child? It's a ROOTED love and compassion. This is a GIFT of Christ-like compassion...and one POSITIVE result of cancer that I will happily embrace~