God of all comfort

A verse that I have been meditating on lately is 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, which reads:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too." 


Recently, we had a challenge with Buggy's health that required him to undergo surgery. It wasn't for anything directly life-threatening, but it was a condition that would cause significant complications for him down the road if it was not dealt with quickly. At first, I felt like I was not worried at all about the surgery--as a former surgical nurse, I saw thousands of patients go off to sleep under the anesthesiologist's care, and what goes on inside an OR suite is no mystery at all. But then I had a few nightmares about Buggy's surgery and I realized that deep down somewhere I was deeply unsettled, belying the peaceful exterior I was presenting.

I worry a lot in general. Hubby, on the flip side, is definitely blessed with the spiritual gift of faith. He is so solid and unswerving in his absolute belief in God's power, in his provision, and his faithfulness. It almost seems superhuman sometimes. I love this trait about him, but I am also jealous of it and sometimes it even makes me angry, which just goes to show the depths of how selfish I can be. I literally have gotten angry at him that he is not freaking out alongside of me when something stressful or bad is happening. It makes me angry because then I feel even more alone.

Over the last few weeks, it has become clear to me that this pattern of worry is deeply rooted in my unbelief.   This seems like a pretty simple concept, but the realization was quite revolutionary for me. I have whined and despaired in the past because my attempts to stop worrying are always met with failure and it is so tempting to fall back on the excuse that "this is just who I am." But I realized recently that by trying to just fix the worrying, my focus was entirely in the wrong place. My focus instead should be on continually striving to run after Jesus, to spend more time at His feet in prayer and in His word. When you know someone intimately, fear disappears and my fear was the result of falling out of touch with my Heavenly Father.

God was very merciful to us during the experience of Buggy's surgery and he has come through with absolute flying colors. I felt very at peace when the crucial day came and that sense continued through the day as we waited at the hospital. I definitely experienced God's comfort that day.

This is a relatively happy story and so it seems so easy to apply the verse and the concepts of God's comfort to it. But I find that is not always the case. There is a lot of crappy stuff that happens in the world and God's children are definitely not exempt from the storms of life. There are so many instances that just shatter your world--finding out you have a terminal illness, the death of a child, the tragic or unexpected death of a loved one, the senselessness of a violent crime committed against you, finding out you will never be able to have children, or just waking up every single day and feeling absolutely alone in this world. Does this verse apply even to these situations? Although it does not make sense when these things happen to us, I have come to believe that there is no life event that is bigger then God's mercy and His love for us.

And no matter what else happens, that is a very comforting thought indeed.