Page 19 - Contact Spring 2018

C ompassion

Col 3:12 ‘Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe
yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness & patience’

What do we mean when we talk about compassion? Compassion is a strong feeling
of sympathy and sadness for the suffering or misfortune of others and a wish to help
them. (Cambridge dictionary)

I have seen compassion shown in our congregation and community in so many
different ways and I am continually moved by the love you show to each other - lifts
to hospitals, meals for ill or bereaved, visits, calls, texts. A kind word, a smile, a hug,
a squeeze of the arm, a listening ear. Extra time taken with a young person who’s
struggling, noticing the man who sits along your pew has missed a couple of
Sundays, or the lady who’s always first at Laser group hasn’t been there for a while.
Bags of Blessing, clothes bank, lifts to church and GB/BB are only some of the things
I’m aware of! So much is done quietly, with only the people involved being aware of
the kindness shown.

I know this isn’t always everyone’s experience of our church family. We can get it
wrong and leave people feeling let down and hurt. I am so sorry if this has been your
experience.

So how do we love each other better? How can our love go deeper, wider, further?
How do we avoid getting worn out? Max Lucado suggests ‘the secret to loving is
living loved’.

1 John 4: My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love
each other.

Eph 3: And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have
power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long
and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses
knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

‘God loves you, Personally. Powerfully. Passionately.

Others have promised and failed.

God has promised and succeeded.
He loves you with an everlasting love.

And His love - if you will let it - can fill you
And leave you with a love worth giving’

(Max Lucado ‘A love worth giving’) KEN’S ANNU AL REP OR T - 2017

Nikki Gillan