Compassion Fatigue?

By BARBARA WALTER

Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Do you ever get tired of giving and doing for others? I sometimes do. I love helping people, but there are so many good causes that I end up feeling guilty because I can’t support them all. I?must keep my mind focused on the causes I believe the Lord has assigned to me. If I don’t, compassion fatigue tries to set in.

We hear that term more often as natural disasters and armed conflict have made it a common expression in newscasting. It is a gradual lessening of compassion over time, frequently seen among victims of trauma and the people who work closely with them. Symptoms include ongoing stress and anxiety, hopelessness and a decrease in the capacity to experience pleasure. This results in an inability to focus, unproductivity and feelings of incompetence and self-doubt.

Media analysts contend that news reporting creates widespread compassion fatigue by bombarding readers and viewers with images of destruction and suffering. This, they assert, has caused some people to become cynical and reluctant to help others in distress.

Saturating the public with emotionally charged appeals does not alleviate suffering. Such relief comes from following the example of Jesus, whose life embodied true compassion.

Mother Teresa exemplified compassion to the world as she not only cared for the sick and dying but was an international champion for the needs of suffering people everywhere. She was tireless because she believed Jesus’ words, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me.”

Joseph House, in Salisbury, was started by Sister Mary Elizabeth Gintling. When she received the Extension Society’s Lumen Christi?award in 1989, she was called “Mother Teresa of Salisbury.”

As a volunteer with Joseph House for many years, I watched Sister Mary Elizabeth in action. Because of her love for Christ, her compassion did not waver. Even as a respiratory disorder required her to use oxygen, she never relented in her desire to serve others.

After she had passed the director’s baton, Sister Mary Elizabeth was introduced at a meeting as “retired.” Slowly standing to her feet to acknowledge the introduction, she remarked, “Nuns don’t retire!”

Her example has often encouraged me. She carried out the words of Paul, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”

Many other ministries and outreaches of compassion follow the same code.

What bearing does compassion fatigue?have on Paul’s instruction??I’ve learned that if I become emotionally burned out, what I was feeling wasn’t really compassion.

Having compassion for others is a gift like generosity or mercy – we don’t exhaust it because we feel overwhelmed or unappreciated. Such a gift makes us press into it, and adversity doesn’t diminish it.

What are some emotions we could confuse with compassion? What about the need to be recognized and thanked? Motivated by that need, we can easily do something nice and think it’s compassionate toward someone else when it’s really for us.

What about the false belief that we can earn our salvation by works? Then there’s attempting to avoid rejection by God on account of our busyness. Or trying to impress men with spirituality. All of these are unhealthy misconceptions which can be confused with compassion.

Compassion is not sympathy, which comes for a variety of reasons. We can show sympathy while smugly saying to ourselves, “I’m glad I’m not in your shoes.” Is that sympathy or arrogance? Sometimes compassion takes the form of pity, like when we see suffering. But we have to be careful that it’s not that same arrogance which thinks, “Better you than me.”

Genuine compassion is not natural to man; it comes from God. When a man possesses the compassion of God, it is a deep well within him that will never run dry as long as he knows the love of God. The body may become fatigued but not the gift of compassion.

Jesus had compassion when He put other people ahead of Himself. He had compassion when He healed people and forgave their sins. His ultimate act of compassion was dying on the cross so everyone could be healed and forgiven. Jesus, the Son of Heaven and part of the Godhead, gave up all of His rights to Himself for the sake of a world that rejected Him. With such an example, we should never think that compassion can burn out.

Compassion will go without to help someone else. It will walk the extra mile to tell someone about Jesus, the true source of help. Compassion is looking within ourselves to see if we can help, rather than looking at someone’s plight as a result of sin. Compassion refuses to give up on those who repeatedly commit the same offenses and get stuck in a pattern of suffering loss.

Compassion fatigue?is a good example of something called compassion that really isn’t.

We are being called to greater compassion as our world finds itself in times of financial crisis, moral uncertainty and natural disasters. It is time to become more generous, even in our own lack. My prayer is that my family and I will be more loving and generous in the days to come.

Jesus is full of love and compassion, and we can draw from His supply. As Paul declared—

“My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Barbara Walter, wife of Manna editor Randy Walter, is director of Shiloh Ministries, in Berlin. She has been writing “Things Hoped For” in the Manna since 1986.