My husband and I took a trip to a couple of beautiful, old Southern towns recently. We stayed in homes near the bustling heart of those downtown areas so we could park our car and walk around to see the sights. We walked to restaurants and shops and historic homes. I put a lot of miles on my sneakers!

Once we got back in the car to drive somewhere too far to walk, I noticed a certain empathy for the pedestrians attempting to cross busy streets. Whether they followed the rules about crosswalks or not, we were aware of their presence, just as we had hoped other drivers had been looking out for us when we left the relative safety of sidewalks and stepped out into possible danger.

That got me thinking about empathy. When you’ve (literally or figuratively) walked where others are walking, it should inspire a measure of compassion and sympathy, because you’ve been there. As a veteran of that particular battle, you know the pros/cons, the ups/downs, the good/bad, the blessings/curses, the peaks/valleys of their situation. As life experiences increase, empathy should increase, too.

It's similar to the way I feel when I see a mom wrestling young kids in a public place. The kids are tired and hungry and mad because mom won’t buy Cocoa Puffs. There’s weeping from the kids and gnashing of teeth from mom, and I fully empathize. Sister, I’ve been there. I’ve had to park the shopping cart full of unpurchased items and just drive the kids home. It’s the same on airplanes. When parents board with a newborn or toddler, I secretly hope they’ll sit near me, because I have a high tolerance for kids’ antics. With my background, I can take the sounds, smells, and sticky fingers of children.

But it’s not possible to have every specific experience, so empathy may require imagination at times. I’ve never worked at Walmart, but that doesn’t prevent me from being kind to the cashier with the long line of customers before and after me as she’s checking out my groceries. I’ve never worked at a restaurant, but I can easily pretend what it would be like to serve food and drinks to potentially grouchy people for hours at a time with very little compensation.

But let’s talk about what empathy is NOT. It’s not pity, and it usually isn’t an opportunity to fix anything. Empathy is a location—sitting, walking, or being with the God-designed soul right in front of me, whether it’s in a deep hole or high on a mountaintop. In his book Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life, Henri Nouwen writes, “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”