Receiving Comfort, Comforting Others
Let me read another short passage from this book about Frances Havergal. It gave me hope as I read it: “It seems as though her soul was often led through dark and gloomy paths. But it was well. If we do not have sorrow, we do not have that comfort from God with which to comfort others.”
The author then speaks about how she wrote so many powerful hymns that brought so much hope to so many people – and if she hadn’t received the comfort of God through her struggles, she wouldn’t have been able to write what she wrote to help others.
Purpose in Suffering
This type of thinking comes from 2 Corinthians, where Paul recounts his own experience with the God of comfort. He says: “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 receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 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 NIV11)
So, why does God allow the troubles we face? So that we can help others who go through similar things, and thereby, we can be a community.
Just the other day I made a new friend who had gone through a very serious health crisis. Diagnosed with leukemia, he had come very close to death and walked a long journey of sickness and suffering. But as I sat and spoke with him, he was overjoyed at the thought that he might be able to encourage somebody else going through what he did. His experience of God’s comfort enabled him to point others to God and expect His help and strength. And so his suffering was seen in a new light, because suddenly there was good that came out of it.
Sharing Comfort's Purpose
That’s what Havergal was talking about! Yes, we go through hardships, but God comforts us and enables us to help others who go through hardships themselves.
How might God use you, if you were more open about your struggles? Who might God touch today, because you share something of yourself and your difficulties and how God helped you through?
Havergal did it through songs of comfort and praise, but you might do it through a conversation, a WhatsApp message, a phone call, a visit.
Pass on the comfort you received, and realise that your suffering is never in vain if you use it this way.
