Comforting….
I spent a bigger portion of yesterday on the phone or waiting for phone calls with a complete stranger working through a problem for which we had to find a solution …this went on into the evening …finally we think there is a resolution and then we stopped talking “shop” and turned personal…they, having lost a spouse this year, handling grief became the topic…I listened a bunch more, tried to encourage until, I finally asked if I could pray…the answer was “yes”, even though they added, “I am so mad at God, this wasn’t supposed to happen or it wasn’t in our plans”….
My heart just broke for this person….but wanted to make sure they had someone local they could talk to…some kind of connections…some kind of comfort….the loss was sooooo raw yet…
Then, this morning, the passage in 2 Corinthians was my reading…a passage I have had leaned into many, many times over the years…God comforts….but not only that He comforts, but that we can comfort others…
When I am going through trials, I always wonder who is going to come across my path that I can pass that comfort on to…’cause it isn’t just about my comfort …it is about Him and His comfort…
Thank YOU…
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation;
and if we are comforted,
it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.
For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.
On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.
You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.
2Cor.1-11
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Matt.24.35
When I survey…
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