Pathway to Peace ....Day 1...Calling for Help

Day One - Calling for Help

Death is an ominous entity to deal with.  Sometimes it announces itself years, weeks, or even days before it comes; giving one an opportunity to prepare. And other times your loved ones are taken in an instant, ripping your very soul from the body it inhabits. The emotional and physical pain that follows is unavoidable. It overtakes your whole being and causes an ache deep inside your soul.

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?

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 tells us that there is someone out there that God has trained to comfort us in such a time, the blessed father…it reads, “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God”  …and even in your initial pain…he is preparing you to be such a comfort as well.

One of the hardest decisions I had to make was who to call in that moment of such deep despair.  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.

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.

God does not intend for you to grieve alone. He has prepared someone to be your shoulder. He has prepared someone else to comfort you through hardships, someone like Paul, a disciple of Christ who well understood the meaning of pain. Paul wrote about many of these hardships in order to prepare us to be such a shoulder.  A lengthy list is offered in one of his letters to a Church in Corinth.

2 Corinthians 11:21b-33

²¹I speak as concerning reproach, as though we had been weak. Howbeit whereinsoever any is bold, (I speak foolishly,) I am bold also.

   ²²Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I.

   ²³Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.

   ²⁴Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.

   ²⁵Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

   ²⁶In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

   ²⁷In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

   ²⁸Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

   ²⁹Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?

   ³⁰If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.

   ³¹The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not.

   ³²In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me:

   ³³And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.

These hardships of Paul were used by God to prepare him to be a shoulder and strength to the first Christians.  He explains further in Chapter 12:9-10.

⁹And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

   ¹⁰Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

Who else could minister more fully to these first Christians than one who had seen it all?  Who else could comfort the prisoner than someone who was imprisioned?

Even in your first moments of pain he is beginning to prepare you to comfort someone else. Allow him to fill you fully with his strength, so that the power of the Lord will rest upon you. Allow him to build you into his tool of comfort for someone else.