COMPASSION

The lord is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and rich in love.  The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made (Psalm 145: 8-9)

We teach children that their attitudes and actions must reflect kindness and compassion. Compassion is much stronger than sympathy; if you have compassion you step into someone’s shoes, share their experiences and sufferings and want to support them or act on their behalf.   It is not just feeling sorry for someone but actually doing something about making their life or situation better.

Compassion is about ‘standing in someone else’s shoes’ when they are having a hard time. In other words, trying to understand how they might be feeling and doing our best to try to help.  Talk together about:

• how we can show compassion and kindness to one another at home
• recognising when friends at school need us to listen and act with compassion
• stories in the news demonstrating how strangers show compassion in times of natural disasters
• how nations show compassion to other nations at times of disaster or need by sending money or volunteers to help

We will be linking Compassion to ‘The Parable of the Good Samaritan’ (Luke 10:25-37)