comfort

Comfort is as single-minded and stubborn as a fortress. It is low to the ground, dusty with obscurity and limitation. Like a bunker buried in the sand, it acts in faith, quietly raging against the injury that is evident, signaling the presence of something unseen.

To comfort is not to heal. It is not to prevent or pre-empt. It is not to anticipate or even alleviate, to reduce or remove or reconcile or revive. It is as senseless as the dead things it welcomes and touches, as inconsequential as the smallest seed dropped on the ground.

True comfort watches. It sees. It does not turn away when the bone cracks, the tears are blinked away, the soul is torn. Comfort is in spite of the pain, in the midst of it, though it does not watch dispassionately. It fumes and weeps in the waiting. Comfort is patient, and wise.

Where shame has taken root, comfort nourishes the roots of her dignity. Where contempt has taken hold, comfort quietly grasps his hand. Where despair has taken up residence so that the drapes are drawn and the doors are locked, comfort gently cracks open a window onto a sparkling night sky, a golden dawn, a fresh breeze that cleans and clears away.  

To be comforted is to have known bruising, to gasp and sputter on the edge of extinction, to be stripped of agency, to fall. To know comfort is not to be spared or to know no pain.

To know comfort is to be freed from fear.

To be comforted is to be gathered up. To be comforted is to be held and looked after. To be comforted is to be accompanied, and attached – no matter how far, no matter how long, no matter how horrendous or violent or sickeningly wrong. To know comfort is to know you are treasured in the life of another. To be comforted is to be loved back into being.

Jesus, the God of all comfort, hides this protection in our hearts, our souls, our very core. It is his being with us that keeps us safe; his intentional, never-forsaking presence that makes us strong.

some questions to hold

• Consider the people you feel you can relax with. How would you describe what it is that helps you to feel comfortable?
• How would you describe the difference between pain and fear? What do you notice in your body when you experience each of these things?
• Here are some of the verses in the Bible that come to mind for me when I think about Jesus’ desire to be with us. He says this over and over again, and gives us language for what he desires for us to experience in his presence. If you want, choose just 1 of these verses to Google, and allow his words to prompt your curious questions: Matthew 28:20, Isaiah 43:1-2, Genesis 3:8-9, Revelation 21:3-4, John 14:3, Romans 8:31-39.

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