A Compassionate Touch

“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.” – Mark 6:34 While there are many words we can use to describe how healing happens in the church, if I were to pick one, it would be compassion. Nearly every time Jesus restored, touched, or taught in the Bible, it says that He had compassion for the people He was helping. In fact, this familiar word literally means to “suffer alongside.” The term passion, which is often used to describe the cross, comes from the french word for suffering, which is pati, and when you add the prefix co, it means to “suffer with.” Truth is, there’s great healing power in offering sympathy and tenderness to an emotionally-wounded neighbor, and since we live in a world that can’t seem to stop