The gift of empathy

I have the gift of empathy. Some have called it a "curse". Truly, though, it is a gift from God.

The gift has landed me in the hospital a few times with symptoms of a heart attack. Each time the doctors have been puzzled that I pass all the tests, yet I continue with symptoms of a heart attack.

Each time I have been able to trace the heart attack symptoms to orphan or post-adoption trauma. The first time was when Russia closed its doors to international adoption.

I was empathetic.

As far as my mind and body could discern, I was the orphan who had been abandoned, left to starve, without pain management, without hope.... Even while in the hospital, every time my mind began to think or my heart began to empathize with the orphans, the heart monitors went off showing I was having a heart attack--though I was not.

Empathy--feeling with every fiber of my being--makes it very difficult when my children get hurt physically. Even if one of my children gets a tiny paper cut, I actually feel sharp pain in my body.

Literally.

If I even perceive that one of my children is about to get hurt (by possibly tripping...), literal pain shoots out my limbs, up and down my spine, and then settles in my hips.

Literally.

This goes for anyone I see get hurt, physically or emotionally--even if I don't know the person. My body literally joins them in their pain. I even dream as if I am the one in the actual trauma. I cannot escape it.

Since then, my heart has often been filled with grief over the traumas my children have faced and over the traumas others have faced.

Fast forward, and at the end of May into June the situation escalated. I was in the hospital for 3 days with chest pains that would not quit--even with morphine.

After being on a Holter monitor, I was diagnosed with atrial tachycardia. The rhythm of my heart has now changed. Even while being off caffeine and being on medication, my heart remains feeling as if it wants to somersault out of my chest.

I believe that empathy has led to my atrial tachycardia. Am I angry? Am I upset? Do I want a "redo" of the last 7 years?

Nope.

I was not called to self-preservation.

God has granted me this gift so that I may minister to others as I enter into their pain and hurt. It is a gift for you, my friend. May I utilize the gift to the uplifting of my family, friends, and those I have yet to know. May I love you well as we walk this road of life together.

💗 Julie