Quotes about Empathy

You have beautiful hair"... and she reached out to touch it, her bejeweled fingers gently caressing my head. A tear slipped down my cheek. I knew how the lepers felt when Jesus touched them and made them whole again.

I don't think it's right to unburden your own heart by laying the load on someone else's. Some secrets are better left untold.

These seasons of suffering are not for nothing. They will grow you. They will shape you. They will soften you. They will allow you to experience God's comfort and compassion. But you will find life-giving purpose and meaning when you allow God to take your painful experiences and comfort others. You will be able to share a unique hope because you know exactly what it feels like to be them.

My ability to heal cannot be conditional on them wanting my forgiveness but only on my willingness to give it.

The Bible reminds us that we shouldn't "let any unwholesome talk come out of [our] mouths (or fly from our typing fingertips), but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." That's from Ephesians 4:29

But it is a rare and beautiful thing when we choose to offer love in situations when most people would choose to scorn or ignore.

No, it's not wrong to need people. But some of our biggest disappointments in life are the result of expectations we have of others that they can't ever possibly meet. That's when the desire to connect becomes an unrealistic need. Unrealistic neediness is actually greediness in disguise.

Staying here, blaming them, and forever defining your life by what they did will only increase the pain. Worse, it will keep projecting out onto others. The more our pain consumes us, the more it will control us. And sadly, it's those who least deserve to be hurt whom our unresolved pain will hurt the most.

We must respect ourselves enough to break the pattern of placing unrealistic expectations on others.

Jesus knew what being rejected felt like. Jesus knew. He knew the feelings. He knew the struggles. And in an earth-shattering moment, Jesus exposed the way of escape for us. He matched every feeling—the emptiness, the deprivation, and the rejection—with truths straight from God's Word. Lies flee in the presence of truth.

Bitterness isn't usually found most deeply in those whose hearts are hard but rather in those who are most tender. It's not that they are cold; it's that they've been made to feel unsafe.

People aren't thinking about us nearly as much as we might think they are.