Compassion

Noun: sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

It has been suggested in some quarters that I take a more compassionate approach to step parenting. On one level, being more compassionate won't be too hard. If I am brutally honest, I have little sympathy at all for K, so there's plenty of room for being more conscious of her suffering and desiring to alleviate it. The hard part for me is to get past the visceral disdain she has for me, and her sheer disgust at my presence.

On another level I have been very compassionate, though my desire to alleviate her suffering through order and discipline is clearly not working. I cannot break her defiant spirit to reveal the loving child. The walls of anger need to chipped away at with a sculptors chisel rather than smashed with a wrecking ball. Time to get on with sculpting and leave the wrecking behind.

It is not me, but the Father within, who does the work.