“Empathy is required here, the gift to feel what others feel and to understand what others are experiencing. Empathy is the natural outgrowth of charity. It stimulates and enhances our capacity to serve. Empathy is not sympathy but understanding and caring. It is the basis of true friendship.” Lynn A. Mickelsen

Lately I’ve been blessed with a deeper understanding of the gift of empathy. There is such comfort in the words, the truth of, “I’ve been there.”  Whatever we’re going through, someone else has walked a similar path and can understand what seems incomprehensible. Though I wouldn’t wish any of the hard things I’ve experienced on those I love, I’m thankful for friends and family, the Lord has prepared and placed in my life, who have already made the journey I’m taking and can offer guidance and most needed empathy.

Before my divorce, I hurt for family and friends who experienced that trauma. I prayed for them and tried to minister and comfort in any way I could. After my own divorce, I understood, all the way in my soul, the devastation and life-altering emotions and circumstances they were experiencing. Just as the Lord had lovingly planned ahead for me, blessing me with others who were traveling the same broken road, He has allowed my painful journey to prepare me to be a support and comfort to His other beloved children.

“…faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is a conviction and trust that God knows us and loves us and will hear our prayers and answer them with what is best for us.

“In fact, God will do more than what is best for us. He will do what is best for us and for all of our Heavenly Father’s children.” Dallin H. Oaks

Now I’m learning something new to help me bless others. One day, this painful time caring for my mom while she battles cancer, and the varied, unimagined challenges and sorrows it brings daily, will be a memory. For now, I have beautiful, Spirit-filled moments that carry me through, kind, cherished friends who offer desperately needed love and support, and specially chosen angels who’ve “been there,” understand, and are reminders that the Lord always prepares the way. I’ve been amazed as I reflect on the tender mercies of the Lord in this regard. I’ve had the dearest of friends who have experienced such similar trials that it’s awe-inspiring. The love, the caring and nurturing, I feel from the Lord in placing these dear ones in my life, is humbling and sweet. They, along with all who’ve reached out, have been His arms around me.

“Will we too trust the Lord amid a perplexing trial for which we have no easy explanation? Do we understand—really comprehend—that Jesus knows and understands when we are stressed and perplexed? The complete consecration which effected the Atonement ensured Jesus’ perfect empathy; He felt our very pains and afflictions before we did and knows how to succor us.” Neal A. Maxwell

In order to perfectly succor us, to be able to truly say, “I’ve been there, I understand,” for each and every one of us, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Friend, was willing to literally experience all our sorrows, anguish, and grief, our aloneness, fear, and weakness. He, above all human understanding, can offer pure, complete empathy. He knows, with exactness, what we’re going through, how we struggle. This knowledge has made my hard things bearable. I know He’s there in the middle of the night, in the ER, in the center of our storms. Along with the people He’s provided for me to lean on, He is my one steady, constant source of comfort and perfect understanding.

“And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

“And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

“Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.” Alma 7:11-13