SOOTHING COMFORT

Comfort,

comfort my people, says your God.

Isaiah 40:1

Store up comfort.

This is our mission.

The world is full of hurting & comfortless hearts.

We must be trained to comfort

Our training is extremely costly,

For to make it complete, we too must endure the same afflictions that are wrenching hearts to tears & blood.

Our own life must be a hospital ward where we are taught the art of comfort. We will be wounded to experience the binding up of our wounds by the Great Physician,

Then we must learn how to render first aid to the wounded everywhere.

Don’t be shocked by our experience of some great sorrow!

This how we learn to comfort the afflicted

This how we learn to comfort with the comfort we were comforted with.

God will apply the anesthetic He once used on us to them.

Our gleams of hope is what chases the shadow of despair from the soul, then we will know why we were afflicted.

The is in our comfort & the results are in the comforted

And we will bless God for the discipline that filled our life with treasure of experience & helpfulness.

Adapted

They tell me I must bruise The rose’s leaf,

Ere I can keep and use Its fragrance brief.

They tell me I must break The skylark’s heart,

Ere her cage song will make The silence start.

They tell me love must bleed, And friendship weep,

Ere in my deepest need I touch that deep.

Must it be always so With precious things?

Must they be bruised and go With beaten wings?

Ah, yes! by crushing days, By caging nights, by scar

Of thorn and stony ways,

These blessings are!

These are the comforts of our souls

Streams