Activate Empathy

FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

This week was a party haha! We were able to drive to fishers in the pouring rain to attend MLC!! It was so nice to have rain again. 

Columbus also had a big fun ethnic expo downtown where we took a poster board and some sticky notes and asked people what brings them joy :) it was such a fun way to start conversations and meet so many people !! A lady from the newspaper even snapped our pic and asked us where we are from for the paper haha!

We got to go on a fall adventure today and Indiana never disappoints. It is BEAUTIFUL. It's getting colder, the leaves are changing, and I am a happy gal! 

I read a talk this week and I loved this part of it. It reads, 

"Throughout the Old Testament, the children of Israel were repeatedly commanded that certain groups of people were to be extended special care. These groups included the poor and oppressed, widows and orphans, and strangers. When the Lord revealed His law to the prophet Moses, He commanded, 'Thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.'

I think it would be unfair and inaccurate for me to compare my experiences of not belonging to those whose cultural or racial identity, gender, socioeconomic status, or sexual orientation have placed them on the margins of society for hundreds or even thousands of years. Nevertheless, the Lord’s reminder that “ye know the heart of a stranger” was designed to activate a holy empathy within all of us. It is like He is speaking to me, saying, “Phil, you know what it feels like to not belong. Remember seventh grade at East Minico Junior High School.” That was my Egypt. I am fifty years old, and I still remember the sting of that awkward and painful episode of my life.

How we respond as a community and how I personally respond to those on the margins has weighed heavily upon my mind for quite a while. I believe we can and should do better. More important, I believe that I can and should do better. My relationship with God—who asks me to show my love for Him by loving my ­neighbor—depends upon it. Likewise, I believe that my discipleship and personal ministry should largely be defined by it.

Jesus ministered to all types of marginalized individuals, including lepers, prostitutes, adulterers, the demon-possessed, and Roman soldiers. Even while upon Golgotha’s agonizing cross, the One—innocently and heroically bearing all sin and human frailty—mercifully ministered to a contrite thief being crucified next to Him for his crimes.

So then what do we see Christ do with the marginalized? As previously mentioned, He ate with them, He walked with them, He cried with them, He healed them, He validated them, and He listened to them. Most important, Christ taught everyone the doctrine of His Father—the doctrine of ultimate liberation: that in Him and through Him alone we are made free from the bondage of sin and death and that in Him we overcome all things." 

I invite us all to activate holy empathy by recalling how we too were once strangers in the land of Egypt. 

Let's be a little more accepting and a lot more loving to those around us.  Peace and blessings <3

ALL MY LOVE, ox sister rich