Devotional for Tuesday, October 11, 2016
“The Comfort Only the Holy Spirit Can Bring”
by Dona Hake
I can remember a particular young woman that I encountered while shopping over the Christmas holidays a few years ago. She worked in one of my favorite stores so we would talk often. I inquired how she had been doing. She dropped her head and said, “Not well at all. I am really having a hard time getting through this…” I immediately knew what she was referring to for I knew from previous conversations that she had lost someone very special in her life. She began to share that it has been five years and she has done well for the past five Christmas holidays yet this year she could not figure out why this one was so hard. The depression that enveloped her touched me in my heart. I began to try to console her for I too know what it is like to lose someone over the holidays. Sometimes words seem so inadequate yet I know they do more than what we realize at times. I walked out the door and prayed that God would comfort her heart.
We need to be cautious that we are not missing opportunities to comfort those around us that have broken hearts. Many times especially during the holidays we can be tempted to live in our own little world in the midst of the busy preparations. We can become oblivious to the pain of those that may be reaching into the sentimental memories of their past and they are hurting and feeling low because of it. It may not even be a loss by death, but a broken relationship that has caused division in their family. Pain and hurt is in this world, and sometimes people try to hide it, and their soul is weak and torn.
Today may I encourage your heart to ask the Lord to give you an awareness of those that may be hurting? We never know from day to day who the Lord will put into our paths. May we stay sensitive to the pain and needs around us. Maybe you are reading this and you are walking through the pain of remembering someone you love and have lost or you are enduring a trial that has robbed you of the joy of life. I pray that God’s comfort would permeate you and keep your heart and that His joy would well up within you. I pray also that great strength would arise within you that you may in turn share that same comfort with someone else. God bless you.
2 Corinthians 1:3 (The Message)
“All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.”