I watched as the tiny, elderly lady crumpled to the asphalt.

 “Will you help her? Please! Help her!?” Her friend shouted at me. I didn’t know what to do. I averted my eyes, and turned and walked away just as another passerby came to her aid. “That girl wouldn’t help her!”, I heard her friend tell the man.  It didn’t feel like it was my place. I was scared, not for her, but for myself.

Not my proudest moment.

It was my 18th birthday, and registering to vote was at the top of my To-Do list that day. I saw the lady fall down as I was coming back out of the Post Office. It’s not that I didn’t feel badly or that I didn’t want to help her. I was just rather oblivious to the situation.

I didn’t realize she was probably quite injured. I didn’t think it was my place to get involved. Call me unfeeling, or distant, or just plain clueless. I was a combination of all three. Compassion for others was not a strength of my character at that point in my life. I didn’t know Jesus, and my world revolved around one person. ME.

I recently had someone remark about me, “You’re so compassionate and caring of others. I love your heart to serve!” This has not always been the case, and even now, it sometimes takes a conscious effort. Is everyone like this? I don’t know. I only know that it took years and many series of life experiences to bring me to this point, where I care about someone besides myself.

God has ways of changing us that we don’t expect. {Click to Tweet That!}

At 18 I was selfish—oh SO selfish—and life was all about me and how I wanted to be happy, and everyone else be damned. Then I had kids.

I always say that God has a sense of humor, and in this area of my life I’m sure he got the last laugh. He may still be laughing, in fact. I never wanted a lot of kids. I thought two kids made the perfect family. Two were all that I wanted, and two were all that I would have.

I got married at 18, had a baby at 20, and got divorced right afterward. Then I met a guy with two kids. (Can you hear Him giggling?) We had a baby together and created a family of six. Four kids. I was beyond DONE after our daughter was born. But God laughed and brought two amazing baby boys into our lives via foster care/adoption.

Six kids.

Oh yes, God laughs, but He always has lessons to teach us. Lessons on how to be unselfish, to give yourself entirely to someone else. Learning to parent was the first step in this process. I still had an issue with old people and anyone outside of my comfort zone. I learned to empathize with the mothers of the foster kids we cared for. That was a stretch in itself.

When you’ve got teens, and they have to get braces, you rearrange your priorities. In our case, it was a major budget buster when THREE had to get them around the same time. It called for a shift in the way we lived, and I had to get a part-time job to pay for them.

Enter CNA classes. I trained for and became a nursing assistant, in a nursing home.

Working with old people.

Elderly people still freaked me out. I didn’t know how to relate to them. Didn’t really feel strongly about their welfare. To start with, it was a job I could do on the weekends that would pay the orthodontist bills. I’m sure the Lord had a good time watching me learn to relate to my residents as THEY taught ME about life. I know He saw me grow, quickly, and I began to understand the full weight of what I was doing.

I learned that caring for people who are not able to care for themselves is a gift. That someone in their 80’s or 90’s has a lot of knowledge to pass on. That I am blessed when I help someone else.

Is compassion caught, or taught?

In my case, it was definitely taught, by God, through life experience. Do your kids a favor: Teach them to be compassionate now. Give them a reason to care about others that they don’t know and would not normally associate with.

Am I still selfish? I can be, but I am not the center of my own universe anymore. God is my Center, and all I do is try to follow what He’s taught me.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40