She went grey and looked like she was about to faint. I did not know what to do. Especially when she actually fell to the floor. I was 9 years old and was the newest member of the school. My music mistress was dramatically taken ill during a session of what was unimaginatively termed ‘small choir.’ Because that’s what it was.

The seconds seemed to pulse loudly in my head as I looked round at the other girls all clad in our blue tunics and indoor shoes. Each face looked horrified and incredibly aware that it had a 9 year old inexperienced owner. I don’t remember who ran for help, but it wasn’t me. I knelt beside my pallid teacher and wondered if she was dead. The sudden gutteral sound from her throat assured me that she was very much alive and about to share the contents her stomach. I moved away. Fast.

It had been a fairly traumatic few minutes. One of my fellow pupils had thrown up incredibly violently. Mrs Isaac’s face had changed immediately as she lost any semblance of control over her body.
Another teacher soon arrived on the scene.

Mrs Garforth was a no-nonsense woman. Her arrival anywhere was an EVENT. She was loud, hearty and reassuring. The sort of woman who only really actually suited jodpurs, she took in the chaos with grim command. Initially very concerned to find her colleague spreadeagled on the hall floor, and another girl in tears clutching her tummy and continuing to pebble-dash the surrounding area, perhaps she wondered if she was witnessing the beginnings of an epidemic. She sat Mrs Isaac on a piano stool, called for water, sent for buckets and the school cleaner, whilst simultaneously restoring calm in the hearts of us anxious girls.

As she gleaned what had actually occurred, I saw the distinct signs of disapproval begin to appear on her face. She could not hide it. She thought her friend was weak and I believe at one point, she may have actually tutted. Mrs Garforth was not the sympathetic vomiting type. She had little patience for those that were. Don’t get me wrong, she had huge empathy and concern, was fiercely good at her job and adored all those in her care (I remember her giving me hours of private tuition in Maths to get me through the foul 11 plus exam, for instance.) But she was very much unafraid of blood, sick, gore and horse manure. She took it all in her confident stride.

The other day as I came back from town, I came across the tell-tale signs of a heavy night for one of my fellow-man. Four separate piles of ‘pavement pizza’ (eeeuuugghhhh!) greeted me during my walk home. It cast my mind back to the event I have just described for you. (My apologies if, like Mrs Isaac, you suffer with ‘SV’ and are now in close proximity to a U bend.)

Such a sight is not the sort of thing to induce me to divulge my last meal. I am ok with bodily functions. I have been brought up to be a person that takes charge in such situations, (although my nine year old self had yet to learn this.) I don’t seek it out, (that would just be plain unpleasant, not to mention wrong) but if its seeks me, I can handle it.

Doing anything ‘in sympathy’ with another person is one of the things I believe we are designed to do by our Father. We are created with the natural ability to become like those around us and react as they do. But it is also something that the enemy can use too. We need to keep a close check on whether those we surround ourselves with are good for us. Do they ‘spur us on to good deeds’ or do they make us do the opposite?

I have become much more northern in recent days. My vowel sounds have always had such an inflection, but there is a noticeable change in my voice. I am becoming a sympathetic mancunian- and not in an “I feel sorry for you folks’ kind of way! I LOVE this place, this accent and these people. But I need to be careful as I make new friends, that I put good influences in my life. I know that I am a strong person and unlikely to be swayed by new fads, fashions and fettishes, but I still need to keep a watch on myself so that I am never diluted in any way and continue to swim upstream. My close friends need to have the impact of making me more like Jesus. If they don’t, they will start to make me less like Him. FACT. That’s why I need to guard my heart and check regularly how I am reacting and why.

What about you? Have you noticed any new patterns in your behaviour recently? Who are you ‘in sympathy’ with? What do you do as an innate response to those around you? Can you spy any new words, pursuits or habits forming in your life? If so, are those things like vomit to God or do they possess the sweet fragrance of His son?