AMEN Australia 2015: Eden Unlocked- the Secret of Healing Ministry

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Carina Cotaru

Compassion Fatigue


All right, let's just start this morning devotional with a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for this time away to recharge and to hear your Word. I just pray that you speak through me this morning that those who are here hear not my words but hear what you have to say to them. I ask this in Jesus name, Amen. Will you do that from the back or do you want me to?

I'll do that, okay. So this morning I've been asked to speak to you about compassion fatigue and as I thought about what I could talk to you about. Lots of ideas came through but being a devotional I really wanted to link it back to a Bible reading. So our reading for this morning is quite long. It's found in Mark 6 30 to 46.

So if you've got your Bibles, you can follow along. I've actually put it up on the PowerPoint as well. The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. Then Jesus said, let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest a while. He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn't even have time to eat.

Has that ever happened to you? So they left by boat for a quiet place where they could be alone, but many people recognised them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. Late in the afternoon, his disciples came to him and said, this is a remote place and it's getting late.

Send the crowds away so that they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.' But Jesus said, you feed them. With what, they asked, we'd have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people. How much bread do you have, he asked. Go and find out. They came back and reported, we have 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.

Then Jesus told the disciples to have people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of 50 or 100. Jesus took the 5 loaves and 2 fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share.

They all ate as much as they wanted and afterward the disciples picked up 12 baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5, 000 men and their families were fed. Immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and head across the lake to Bethesda while he sent the people home. After telling everyone goodbye, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. And I thought, well, where can I find a definition of compassion, given that this is what I'm talking about?

And I had to look through the dictionary, but I thought, let's go back to a Bible dictionary. And I actually found that there are 3 Greek words in the New Testament which have been translated into English as compassion. The first 1 is Elios, which means to have mercy upon, help the afflicted. It is an action but it doesn't particularly place much emphasis on the feeling of the 1 performing the action. So it's just a benevolent action.

You see someone who's upset, in pain, and you help them out. But you're not particularly interested in why or what's going on with them. The next word is oikteros, which means to have pity, a feeling of distress through the suffering of others. And now this is an emotion without the action. So you see someone, you're like, oh, I feel really sorry for you, but okay, maybe I can't do anything, or you're not really, I can't help you, I'm not interested in helping you.

The third word is splagnitumai and it's actually a verb and it means to be moved in the inner parts which at the time were thought to be the seat of emotion. So we see that this word actually combines the 2 previous words. So you have an emotional reaction, and then that actually produces an action. And the word that's actually most commonly used in the New Testament is splagnitamai, which is this last word. So you are emotionally moved, but then you do something.

And it actually occurs 12 times, and it's particularly used in the Gospels when it refers to Jesus. So given that you have that definition of compassion, what do you think compassion, or what are some of the things that run through your mind when you think about compassion fatigue? Just from your everyday practice or just those those words. Emotional fatigue, yeah. Anyone else?

Action? Or both? Yeah. Loss of empathy? Anyone else?

Okay. So on December the 2nd 2014 Amanda Lambros wrote an article for the conversation website which by the way I don't know if you if you read it but it's a really interesting website which is an independent source of news. And it's from the academic and research community. And she entitled this article, Compassion Fatigue, the cost some workers pay for caring. So she wrote that researchers first identified compassion fatigue in the 1970s, which I think has been around for longer than that.

And they first actually coined this term in the 1990s to describe emergency care workers who are experiencing similar symptoms to burnout. And she gives the following definition of compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is a combination of physical, emotional and spiritual depletion associated with caring for people in significant emotional pain and physical distress. So again it goes back to that Greek word, sphagnitamai, which shows that it's fatigue in the emotional sense as well as the physical sense. And she, from her research, She estimates that the prevalence of compassion fatigue ranges between about 7% to 40% of workers in intensive care settings.

So that's emergency intensive care. And even up to 70% of inexperienced mental health workers. And she reports that it's more likely to occur in inexperienced health professionals and those who help others only for short periods of time and her supposition is that it may be because they haven't yet developed coping strategies or don't have good support or debriefing networks as those who've worked in those areas for longer time periods. So this might be reassuring for some of you. You've probably been working for 10, 20, 30 years even.

You may not work in an intensive care setting. But I think none of us actually experience or escape the consequences of caring for others. And there was a book that I read quite a number of years, and I came across this quote again from it. It's called Kitchen Table Wisdom, Stories That Heal by Rachel Naomi Remen. And she describes the impact of caring and compassion on healthcare professionals.

She says, the expectation that we can be immersed in suffering and loss daily and not be touched by it is as unrealistic as expecting to be able to walk through water without getting wet. And whether you're touched by it in a positive or a negative way certainly is what we're going to be talking about a little bit this morning. But I just want you to just kind of read that quote again and think about it. It's like, it's just absolutely impossible not to be touched by the things that we see every day. And so as I was researching this topic, its causes, symptoms, and what the remedies for it are.

I noted that the remedies offered by secular researchers and writers were really starting to echo over and over again with the story of Jesus and his disciples. And we see that the disciples faced exactly the same challenges that we do today. And Jesus was the 1 who recognised their condition and showed them what the remedy was at the same time. So I want us to have another look at verses 30 to 32 in Mark 6. The disciples had just returned from their first mission without Jesus.

And they told him all they had done and taught. And then Jesus must have recognised something that was going on with them and said, let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place. And it does say there that they hadn't even had time to eat. So he's thinking they hadn't even been able to meet their physical needs. They obviously hadn't been able to meet their spiritual or their emotional needs.

And he realized that, and he invited them to spend time with him away from the crowds to recharge. So I thought we'd just very quickly look at some of the symptoms of compassion fatigue. And I've tried not to overwhelm you with too much information. But just some of the sort of breaking things into a few different areas, emotional indicators, physical indicators, personal, and work indicators. Some of the emotional indicators might be just anger, sadness, prolonged grief, anxiety, depression.

Physically, you may have headaches, tiredness, lethargy, sleep problems, lowered immunity. Personal indicators, and we see part of this with the disciples when they were dealing with a big crowd. Self-isolation, cynicism, mood swings, irritability with family and friends, or maybe even substance abuse. When Jesus asked the disciples to, when they asked Jesus to send the crowds away, Jesus just said, well you feed them. And they were kind of like, well, we don't have anything.

Just send them away. It would take so much money to feed them. I don't know what to do. Like, Why are you asking me? And it kind of goes in with the work indicators as well, avoidance of certain patients.

So they were kind of going, well, we've done our bit. I don't want to do this. Don't want to do this anymore. You can see lack of motivation, loss of purpose, or decreased concentration. We're not sure exactly what symptoms the disciples were displaying, but clearly Jesus recognised their need to be recharged physically, emotionally and spiritually.

And at the same time that we sort of see what the disciples were going through. We also see in these same verses the remedy of how to prevent and mitigate compassion fatigue in our own lives and those around us. If we go to verses 45 and 46, Immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and head across the lake to Bethesda while he sent the people home. After telling everyone goodbye, he went up to the hills by himself to pray. So He was looking after them, but he was looking also after himself.

So I think that's 1 of the first points that we need to look at. As Christian health professionals, our number 1 source of compassion is God the Father. And if Jesus, who was the Son of God, needed to spend time away with God, how much more do we need it today? And there are countless verses in the Bible which identify God as our only source of true rest and refreshment. And I'll just read a couple of those for you.

Isaiah 40, 31 says, But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint. Matthew 11 28 to 29, Come to me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your souls.

And Psalm 46, 1, God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. And again, we were reminded yesterday about John 15 in verse 5 says, "'Yes, I am the vine, you are the branches. "'Those who remain in me and I in them "'will produce much fruit. "'For apart from me, you can do nothing.'" The other thing that Jesus recognized was that his disciples needed to be recharged physically and they needed to be recharged through rest but also exercise and healthy diet. And again, we see the principle of the Sabbath rest coming in.

We need to recharge emotionally by taking time away from our professional responsibilities and enjoying recreational activities. And we need to set appropriate boundaries. We see that Jesus was quite firm with the disciples. He said he insisted that they get in the boat and go away, and he was going to take care of the people. We need to have strong and supportive, a supportive network around us with whom we can debrief both personally and professionally.

And we see that that really was what Jesus was trying to do with the disciples. He was probably going to debrief with them about what they had done on their mission and be supportive. And again, with the next point, I think Jesus again was doing that with the disciples. He was in a way their mentor. We need to get regular supervision and mentorship and it's vitally important to talk to someone who's more experienced in the field and also continue professional development to grow both professionally and personally.

And just as God has promised to sustain and strengthen us through the challenges of our earthly lives, he also gives us the promise of rest and healing in Revelation 21 3 to 4 and I just want to end with this verse. Look, God's home is now among his people. He will live with them and they will be his people. God himself will be with them and he will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.

So we can look forward to our ultimate rest. I've really enjoyed this conference. I don't know about you. It's my first time here. I'm a GP.

And so many of these things have been really pertinent to me and I just thought I'd really like us to take time out this morning and ideally to break up into pairs, preferably not your spouse and I'd really encourage you to pray for each other. Because I think what we've been learning about here, a lot of the things we come away here to be refreshed, and we're coming away now with an invitation to go forward and try and encourage that. So I'd really like you to just turn to someone beside you and spend 2 minutes in prayer just praying for each other as we deal with our day-to-day work and just praying that we renew our compassion, renew our zeal and our love for Christ. Thank you. If you would like to listen to more sermons, please visit www.audioverse.org.

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