I like what you have said here and I think it is true. I do have a close friend whom on paper, you would never think we would be compatible. She smokes, I do not. She works at a bar, I do not go to bars. She is quite progressive and I am quit conservative. I am a practicing Catholic and she is a non-practicing Baptist. I could go on and on about how different we are, but we met at local Video Rental Store. She worked there and I would frequent after work (I worked at a local Pizza place). We did not like the same types of movies, but she was good at recommending movies based on what movies I did like at the time. She would also recommend movies that she liked and I would rent those and we would talk about what I didn’t like about them : ) I would fix her computers when she had a problem. Then she got pregnant out of wedlock and I watched as her belly grew. Then when she had her baby, I got to know this little guy (who did not have a father in his life) grow. And so our commonality become more than just movies, but her baby. I never saw my friend as more than a friend, and I now consider her son as a good friend as well. I hope I was able to be a good influence on him as he grew to be a young man. He is a good kid.
Maybe that is why I could care less if my friends wished me a Merry Christmas or not. I am the last to text my true friends anything on certain Holydays. I am, by default, not an empathetic person. And I would disagree that a well-functioning church or not, has much to do with this. There are heart people and there are head people. I am a head person and not a heart person. It doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings or that I don’t care about others, it just means that I care in different ways. The way in which I like to help people is by Praying for them. This is something that others cannot see, for you cannot see Prayers (hints why we use candles and incense in public forms of Prayer). Others are doers. They help people in more visible ways. Sometimes this is good and in other ways this can create more problems or get in the way of what God is trying to do in a person’s life. Last Sunday, we heard the Gospel about “The Good Samaritan.” This parable has always challenged me at face value.
Another aspect of this is that people respond or act for different reasons. Some heart people are moved by emotions (empathy being one of these). Head people might be moved by truth (or a sense of what is right and just). I know people who have great empathy for animals and would do anything to rescue an animal, but very low empathy for human-beings or for children. I have a heart for both children and for individuals who battle addictions, because I was a child of an alcoholic. I also now feel for individuals who have lost a child, because my Wife and I lost our baby late in the pregnancy (which is actually more common than I ever knew prior to experiencing it ourselves).
This is why I think that God can use those who have gone through something to help others get through it or overcome something. Or at least be able to sympathize with someone who is going through it, so that they don’t feel so alone. God certainly puts individuals in our lives while we were going through it and we were greatly blessed by God and others.