Sympathy verses Empathy

The words Sympathy and Empathy are used a lot and sometime incorrectly. They are both words that deal with feeling loss, but one comes from a shared experience and the other from an imagined one.

If I sympathize with someone, I know what they are experiencing because I've been in their shoes. There are many things with which I cannot say I truly can sympathize. For example, I cannot sympathize with anyone who has lost a parent or a child. I still have my parents and children and don't like to even imagine life without them. If I can't sympathize with them, I can empathize with them. That means I try to understand what they are experiencing.

I know that God allows us to go through times of painful loss and uses them so that we can help others who will face the same. Today I saw a good example of that played out under my roof. Anna received a phone call from two of her good friends who also happen to be sisters. Their 14-year-old dog is on the verge of death, and the whole family has begun the grieving process.

I over heard Anna consoling her friend with words that she'd heard said to her. She also was able to sympathize with her friends because her cat of 17 years had to be put to sleep last spring. She knows exactly what they're going through and hurts with them.


Loss and Pain also remind me of a poem by Amy Carmichael:

Have You No Scar?

Have you no scar? No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear you sung as mighty in the land.
I hear them hail your bright ascendant star.

Have you no scar?
Have you no wound?

Yet, I was wounded by the archers, spent, leaned me against the tree to die,
and rent -- by ravenous beasts that encompassed me
I swooned.

Have you no wound?
No wound? No scar?

Yes, as the master shall the servant be,
and pierced are the feet that follow Me,
but yours are whole.

Can he have followed far -- who has no wound? No scar?
Can she have followed far -- who has no wound? No scar?