They Wept Together
Christ is Sufficient
He Smiled
A Child’s Comfort
In Case of Accident
The Will to Carry On
Resource
Topic : Comfort
Tough Times
When times are tough and things just aren’t going your way, there’s nothing like a hug. Someone putting an arm around you and telling you, “Hey, everything’s going to be all right. You’re okay.”
And there’s nobody better at that than your mom. Just ask Nick Anderson. The Orlando Magic guard missed four free throws in the waning seconds of his team’s NBA Finals game against Houston and the team went on to lose a game it otherwise might have won. Later Houston guard Clyde Drexler blew past Anderson for a lay-up late in overtime. Nick Anderson had a very bad game.
Understandably, when he got home Anderson was down in the dumps. “My mom put her arm around me,” Anderson later said, “and told me, ‘You’ve got nothing to put your head down about. You’ve pulled your team through many other times.”
They Wept Together
Once during Queen Victoria’s reign, she heard that the wife of a common laborer had lost her baby. Having experienced deep sorrow herself, she felt moved to express her sympathy. So she called on the bereaved woman one day and spent some time with her. After she left, the neighbors asked what the queen had said.
“Nothing,” replied the grieving mother. “She simply put her hands on mine, and we silently wept together.”
Christ is Sufficient
One night while conducting an evangelistic meeting in the Salvation Army Citadel in Chicago, Booth Tucker preached on the sympathy of Jesus. After his message a man approached him and said, “If your wife had just died, like mine has, and your babies were crying for their mother, who would never come back, you wouldn’t be saying what you’re saying.”
Tragically, a few days later, Tucker’s wife was killed in a train wreck. Her body was brought to Chicago and carried to the same Citadel for the funeral. After the service the bereaved preacher looked down into the silent face of his wife and then turned to those attending. “The other day a man told me I wouldn’t speak of the sympathy of Jesus if my wife had just died. If that man is here, I want to tell him that Christ is sufficient. My heart is broken, but it has a song put there by Jesus. I want that man to know that Jesus Christ speaks comfort to me today.”
He Smiled
Robert Louis Stevenson tells of a storm that caught a vessel off a rocky coast and threatened to drive it and its passengers to destruction. In the midst of the terror, one daring man, contrary to orders, went to the deck, made a dangerous passage to the pilot house and saw the steerman, lashed fast at his post of holding the wheel unwaveringly, and inch by inch, turning the ship out, once more, to sea. The pilot saw the watcher and smiled.
Then, the daring passenger went below and gave out a note of cheer: “I have seen the face of the pilot, and he smiled. All is well.”
A Child’s Comfort
A little girl came home from a neighbor’s house where her little friend had died. “Why did you go?” questioned her father.
“To comfort her mother,” said the child.
“What could you do to comfort her?”
“I climbed into her lap and cried with her.”
In Case of Accident
The bulletin board out in the shop carried this notice:
IN CASE OF ACCIDENT OR INJURY, NOTIFY YOUR SUPERVISOR IMMEDIATELY.
At the bottom of the notice someone scribbled, “He’ll kiss it and make it better.”
The Will to Carry On
Douglas Maurer, 15, of Creve Coeur, Missouri, had been feeling bad for several days. His temperature was ranging between 103 and 105 degrees, and he was suffering from severe flu-like symptoms. Finally, his mother took him to the hospital in St. Louis. Douglas Maurer was diagnosed as having leukemia. The doctors told him in frank terms about his disease. They said that for the next three years, he would have to undergo chemotherapy. They didn’t sugarcoat the side effects. They told Douglas he would go bald and that his body would most likely bloat. Upon learning this, he went into a deep depression. His aunt called a floral shop to send Douglas an arrangement of flowers. She told the clerk that it was for her teenage nephew who has leukemia.
When the flowers arrived at the hospital, they were beautiful. Douglas read the card from his aunt. Then he saw a second card. It said: “Douglas—I took your order. I work at Brix florist. I had leukemia when I was 7 years old. I’m 22 years old now. Good luck. My heart goes out to you. Sincerely, Laura Bradley.”
His face lit up. He said, “Oh!” It’s funny: Douglas Maurer was in a hospital filled with millions of dollars of the most sophisticated medical equipment. He was being treated by expert doctors and nurses with medical training totaling in the hundreds of years. But it was a salesclerk in a flower shop, a woman making $170 a week, who—by taking the time to care, and by being willing to go with what her heart told her to do—gave Douglas hope and the will to carry on.
Resource
- Loving Across Our Differences, by Gerald L. Sittser, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), pp. 157ff.
