Comfort

2 Corinthians 1: 3-5 -  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.  For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

Paul well understood the concept of comfort…he needed God’s comfort many times in his lifetime.  Even though he was received warmly in many places… convincing many of the need to repent of their sins and be saved…he was also beaten… imprisoned… stoned… and ridiculed in others.  Paul had been comforted by the father himself... and had learned through this comfort how to comfort others.

I remember the first few moments after I lost my husband Mitchell.  The nurses kept asking me, is there someone we can call?”  I had already called out to God. I had lifted up my disbelief to him, in total incredulity that he would take my husband only one month after we were married.  At the same time, I was trying to comfort his sister next to me,  trying to bring my own overwhelming emotions under some kind of control.  The cry of that initial pain was so crushing to my physical and emotional being that I felt numb to such a question.  I had cried out to my God for answers, who else could possibly help me now?

These verses tell us that there is someone out there that God has trained to comfort us in such a time, the blessed father …and even in my initial pain…he was preparing me to be such a comfort as well.  I knew God was with me, but I craved someone next to me that was able to share fully in my pain.  Only a moment passed before I knew that it was to be my dear friend and pastor.  She came, without hesitation and offered me herself. I can’t remember her words to me that afternoon, but I remember well the hug, the sharing of tears, the ear to listen to my pitiful cries of pain.  She was there for me in any way I needed her. She understood my pain fully…for she had lost her father.  I am sure as I look back on that day that God chose her for me.  He knew that he had trained her to be my shoulder. What I really needed was a hug, a person to cry with, someone to listen to me cry out my questions of disbelief, and just hold my hand through the initial pain.

This is the call that Paul is reminding us of here….to not just take the father’s comfort and store it up for ourselves….but to learn from it….to use it to help others…to allow the love he gives us to overflow into comfort for others. That’s why he says a few verses later in verse 6-7,  If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.  And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”

Paul makes one other point her in verse 9, “ Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”  Wow…his sufferings taught him how to rely on the father…for everything.  We are to rely on God fully…to completely let go of our own wisdom and rely on the wisdom of God.  It is in God’s perfect wisdom that we are able to comprehend how we could even begin to do the work that Paul did…to allow his love to so control our hearts and lives that we do nothing that is not God’s will.

Father…thank you once again for my pain….it has taught me not to rely on myself …but to turn to Christ…who is my everything.  Take my pain and help me to learn form it….to be a comfort to others….to encourage those who have lost loved ones….to help them to move past the pain of loss and help others too.  Forgive me father for the times that I have failed to show this love and comfort to others….for allowing Satan to trick me into a pity party…for wallowing in the loneliness…for allowing it to stop me from learning more about your love. Amen