Transparency and Comfort

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. 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.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7

I recently meet a woman who shared a prayer request that so pricked my heart I know it bled. As I listened to her very transparent confession and request for a miracle in her marriage I was immediately bonded with her. I have been where she has been and I have walked in her shoes and I cannot get her out of my heart or my mind. And the one thing that I have grieved and have so often thought could never be redeemed is in the sovereignty of God being redeemed… or has the potential to be redeemed.

Whether God can use me in the situation depends on several things. The first already being satisfied and that is a hurting person sharing openly and honestly their burden. Next in the Spirit I received this confession and shared in her suffering. I couldn’t deny that her words left their mark on my soul.

I could amazingly enough, ignore this encounter and walk away not unmoved but unwilling to revisit my past for the sake of another. To tell truth it was incredibly painful for me to even think about where she is right now. The truth of the situation is, I am no longer there. I have walked with God in the midst of anguish and I have survived, I have begun to heal and God is restoring me beyond what I could have ever asked or hoped for.

Why wouldn’t I share the comfort I have received? The only reason I know is that it is costly. It will cost me. It will cost me the pain of remembering. I will have to make myself vulnerable. She may even reject my help, but even in that I know having been there it is because she is unable to receive it at the moment but still very much needs me, needs someone like me to reach out anyway.

We are to be the comfort that God has given us through the sufferings we have walked through with Him. I think it is the highest privilege we have as believers, this bond of suffering.
Will we allow ourselves to be broken again by the lives of people God puts in our paths and will we humbly say, “I have walked were you walked and I can say to you God is good, He never left me. He will never leave you. If you need someone to walk with you, I am here.”

For me this week as my heart bled I knew how far I have come with the Lord in this struggle and how much strength I have gained in relying on Him. Father use me to comfort others.

My Vision