Ella Knows A Better Way
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Recently, I sat staring at my car dashboard in the thick afternoon air of summer, waiting for my daughter’s bus from camp.
What a day… an absolute whiplash of emotion.
Just a couple hours before, I was sitting with a young couple in real relational crisis. The current stress of their lives coupled with the horrific baggage of past trauma they each brought into the relationship left them overwhelmed and nearly hopeless. I heard their stories, validated their feelings, gently challenged their assumptions, and offered a path toward healing.
Minutes later I came across my friend, Mia, in the lobby. She and her husband were speaking with one of our teaching pastors to plan the funeral for her eldest son. He died suddenly and far too soon at 28 years old. I held Mia’s brittle form as she continued to process the shock of the loss.
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
– Romans 12:15, NIV
And the next headline I read on my phone questioned the goodness and godliness of “empathy” – that was a gut-punch.
After I had spent an hour consoling a hurting couple and hugging a bereft mother, the headline was a tough reminder that our culture is experiencing a “Famine of Empathy.”
Without empathy, the giving and receiving of small kindnesses would devolve into an impersonal, hellish machine of transactionalism. Without empathy, the intrinsic and incalculable value of a human being would be forgotten. Without empathy, the value of others would be assessed only in terms of their service to the unquenchable self.
[God] 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 Corinthians 1:4
Standing there in my weariness, I got another text message. It was an update from my friend Andrea about her daughter Ella’s adventures. Ella is serving at a camp in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago. She’s a one-on-one buddy to a frail, pre-verbal girl with more diagnoses than any little kid has any business having.
I applauded her conviction to step into a role this complex and potentially exhausting, but I was not prepared for the photo of Ella with her buddy.
My sad heart broke open over the beauty of that image. It cut through my despair. Pain and brokenness are real…but Ella knows a better way.
This photo was a balm and a challenge for my tired soul – a challenge for us all.
If you are reading this, you (and I) have far more margin and resources than we’re often willing to admit. As citizens of the West, we likely live far above any reasonable definition of what is “enough.”
Maybe it’s not writing a big check or living among lepers in the global south. It can take the form of myriad tiny acts of kindness and grace out of the realization of what a loving God has extended to us.
“What could I do, here and now, that’s one step out of my comfort zone that could make this one person’s day a little better?”
It’s not the first time I’ve cited this quote:
“What do we live life for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?” -British Novelist Mary Ann Evans, under her pen name George Eliot
Friends, we have gotten off track.
(But)
If we bravely ask ourselves this question habitually, something amazing could happen.
Let’s use the long quoted but often overlooked words of an ancient prophet who asserted all that is best in human existence can be summed up in the Golden Rule:
Ask yourself what you want people to do for you [if you were in their situation], then grab the initiative and do it for them.
– Matthew 7:12
I am reminded that despite the suffering and pain of this world, my friend Ella knows a better way – and I believe the rest of us do as well.
This post was originally shared on Chris Cook’s personal blog; find it and more of his photography and writings at https://jchriscook.com