Don’t Lose Your Compassion

It was a late-night scrolling session. 

I lazily swiped through people’s stories on social media as the algorithm brought up posts from people living overseas. “I’ve been in Korea for a month now, and I feel so at home. It’s amazing here!” someone wrote. Hmm, I thought. Classic honeymoon stage. Just wait a bit longer.

“It’s so hard to move abroad,” another person bemoaned. “I’m struggling with the language barrier, I’m homesick, I feel like nobody wants to be my friend, and everything is just really hard right now.” Hmm, I thought. That’s normal. Get over it.

Suddenly, I checked myself. What was I thinking? I knew the kind of pain the writer was feeling, so why was my inner reaction so cold? Feeling rather chagrined, I left a nice comment on their post: “It is hard! I’m sorry you’re going through that. It will get better, but it’s okay to be sad in transition.”

I turned off my phone and lay staring at my bedroom ceiling, thinking back over my 20-something moves in four countries. I was used to moving. I was used to upheaval. I was used to goodbyes. I was used to feeling like the odd one out. To me, it was “just life.”

My highly mobile upbringing gave me keen insight into the ups and downs that other people experienced in their own cross-cultural journeys. So, my heart could go one way or another — either toward compassion and empathy, or toward apathy and judgment.

A Closed Heart

What if we find ourselves silently judging others on social media, for example? What if we start shutting someone down who is experiencing homesickness for the first time, because “if only they knew what it was really like to be far away from home”?

Sometimes, callousness can be a self-protective measure we use to avoid feeling, remembering, or processing the pain and discomfort of our own experiences. So, if we see someone else grieving and struggling, it may trigger us, causing us to pull away and try to minimize their suffering.

We may be tempted to rain on someone else’s parade because we know what’s coming later in culture shock.

Or, we may simply be so used to the highs and lows of cross-cultural life that we genuinely struggle to understand what the big deal is.

But God invites us, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Rom. 12:15 NIV).

God invites us to compassion.

A Compassionate Heart

Compassion comes from the Latin word compassio, which means “to suffer with” or “suffer together.”  

Nobody likes to suffer! Yet suffering is inevitable. Thankfully, we do not have to suffer alone.

Who has been an encourager or comforter in your life?

Just as God sends people to support us, He also exhorts us, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil 2:4 ESV), and, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2 NIV).

As TCKs, both seeing and experiencing many different struggles, we are in a prime position to encourage others along the way.

What challenges have we gone through? How has God spoken to us? What lessons have we learned that we can share in a thoughtful manner? What has comforted us? How can we share comfort with others?

As Paul writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Cor 1:3–4 NIV).

It takes courage to live with an open heart, to allow ourselves to be moved by the pain of others, to suffer with them, and to seek to strengthen them.

It is easier to emotionally detach and become a little colder.

But do we want an easier life — or do we want a richer, more beautiful and fulfilling one?

My friend, don’t allow the challenges of TCK life to steal your empathy.

May we never become so “used to” anything that we become calloused toward those who need our care and support.

May we be TCKs who laugh, weep, cheer, and commiserate with others.

May we accept God’s call to “…sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Peter 3:8 ESV).