WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU’RE DRAWN UNEXPECTEDLY INTO SOMEONE ELSE’S SUFFERING
Matthew 27:32. As they went out, they came upon a man from Cyrene named Simon; they compelled this man to carry his cross.
Simon of Cyrene was drawn unexpectedly into Jesus’ suffering, and his story reminds me that compassion often asks us to enter another person’s pain before we feel ready.
Just yesterday, I spoke with a business associate who had walked away from a prestigious job that had become toxic. He told me the new role he had accepted had fallen apart after only a week, and now he was suffering from anxiety attacks. Without hesitation, I shared my own struggles with anxiety and my experience of searching for work. Then I pointed him toward a career transition service designed for people like him: experienced professionals over 40 who are trying to find their way forward.
Then there was a friend in another country who, many years ago, had deeply hurt me and never acknowledged the suffering or embarrassment she caused. Recently, she posted on social media about the inadequate hospital treatment her paraplegic daughter-in-law was receiving. As I read her words, my heart ached, and I felt compelled to call after all these years to offer help and prayers.
In both moments, I was drawn into the suffering of people I could have easily ignored. With my business associate, compassion required vulnerability: naming my own anxiety while offering a practical resource that might help. He later told me mine was the voice he needed to hear that day.
With my long-lost friend, it was not the memory of old pain that moved me, but the reality of her present suffering and the suffering of her daughter-in-law. That need stirred the love of God in me. She told me she now knows she can rely on me in a difficult situation.
God’s love has a strange but certain way of working through us: drawing us, like Simon of Cyrene, into suffering we did not choose, and teaching us that compassion may begin the moment we stop walking past someone else’s pain.
Christ in you, the hope of glory. That’s why glory matters.
Glory Matters 