When I
surrendered my vocation to God back when I was seventeen-years-old, He called
me to a life of walking through the most broken realities that people face in a
first-world country. The verse that led
me to this life was 2 Corinthians 1:3-4.
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. I began counseling others at the ripe age of
23. I looked like I could have still
been in high school, and the patients given to me rightly had their
doubts. I had my doubts too. I knew that I didn’t have the wisdom to
counseling people double my age. I
didn’t have a lot of experience of deep wounds either so I couldn’t talk to
them from my own experiences of deep brokenness. I was only helpful to them because I relied
totally on the word of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit in me.
As
the decades passed and I experienced life, marriage, motherhood, managing
bills, hurt in relationships, etc.. I applied the comfort from God’s word to my
own life; and my ability to interact with people’s pain increased. The relatively minor personal struggles I
faced helped me enter into the brokenness of anorexia, depression, anxiety,
marital difficulties in a more authentic way.
My increasing troubles helped me transfer the truths of God’s word on a
deeper level. The troubles in this life
are unavoidable. No one escapes the
sorrow of living in a fallen world.
I
did not personally face catastrophic grief until my fifties. Ironically, I discovered that I received
comfort from the comfort I found to comfort others from God’s word. Before I ever personally faced the
devastating troubles of this life, I received God’s comfort. It was slightly opposite of the way Paul
describes the comfort of God coming to us after our troubles. I received comfort from the people who had
trusted me enough to share their vulnerable catastrophic events with me. The comfort I had given them from God’s word
is what comforted me in my struggles. I
discovered first hand that the comfort I had given from God’s word followed the
right path because it led me through my personal grief and struggle. I followed my own advice. I’m so grateful for the widows I advised to
give themselves time to grieve and take medication that takes the edge off so
you can do the hard work of grief. I was
grateful for every parent with children who walked away from the life they
hoped. I encouraged them from God’s Word
in Philippians 1:6 that God had not finished His work yet. I told them maybe someday you will be saying
this to me. I never felt immune from
anything that anyone I counseled happened to them happening to me. We don’t get to decide which cross God will
send to us to bear. We do get to decide
if we will bear it through His wisdom, love and peace or not.
The
life of a Christian is a troubled life.
If Christian’s don’t look troubled by their troubled lives, that is the
difference that being comforted by God makes.
We each have our own troubles to bear.
Some are consequences of our direct rebellion against God. Some are the consequences of the sins of
other people against God. Some are the
natural outflow of living in a fallen world.
Troubles
are to be expected. Comfort is to be
accepted or rejected. How we respond to
God’s comfort to our troubles makes all the difference in our Christian life.
Copyright © 2017. Deborah R Newman teatimeforyoursoul.com All Rights Reserved.
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