“And I will pray the Father,
and he shall give you another Comforter, t
hat he may abide with you forever.”
John 14 verse 16
I’ve been thinking a lot about comfort these days, so I looked up its meaning. The dictionary explains it like this: One. “to give strength and hope, to cheer.” Two. “to ease the grief or trouble of, to console.” Although I like both of the descriptions given, my heart is drawn to the second one, this phase in particular, “to ease the grief”. This is where I am in my life right now. I am in need of someone with the ability to ease the grief I am filled with inside. I don’t seem to know what to do with all of it since my sister died. At first there were plans to be made, things to sort through, details that needed to be worked out. There was not much “feeling” in all this, simply “doing”. It was a relief, really, all the “doing”. It gave me a moment of escape from that which I dreaded the most, the inevitable process of working through my grief and tremendous loss.
This brought me to the place of having to decide between two choices. Am I going to allow the process of healing to begin, or will I do all that I can do to run as far away from my feelings as I am able? To face what has happened will mean allowing me to feel the depth and excruciating pain of my loss. To run from it means only to delay it for another day, for surely it will never go away on its own. It will only lay dormant inside until given another opportunity to show itself, in the hope of getting some long awaited and needed attention. It will show up in places where it wasn’t invited. Unattended to it will affect all of my relationships and most likely those whom I love the deepest. Since I will not allow my grief to become something with a life of its own, causing me to react and respond from only its perspective, I have chosen to work through it as best as I can.
This brings me back to the place where I began writing. In order to go through this process I will need comfort. I will need to be comforted, to feel comforted, to trust and believe in those who are comforting me. With their help I will begin to accept, and I will begin to go on.
In the Bible the Holy Spirit is referred to as our “Comforter”. My Sister made me a blanket before she died. It is a comforter. It is big enough to cover all of me and then some. It is something that I wrap around and hold very closely to myself. It is very soft and it brings me comfort as I hold it close to my skin. It is beautiful and one of a kind and it was made just for me. When I am wrapped up in that blanket I feel closer to my Sister than at any other time, and I can feel her love covering me. This is the same as the Holy Spirit. He comforts us individually, his comfort is “tailor made” to fit each one of us perfectly. He knows us intimately and He longs to do what He was made for, He loves to fulfill His purpose in each one of us and in our lives, when we need Him the very most. He longs to comfort us.
I have a beautiful baby grand daughter, Emma Grace. She is four months old. At times I know that she is tired and in need of rocking. She doesn’t know how to put herself to sleep yet, so I comfort her until she is ready to fall asleep. Sometimes when I first begin to rock her she stiffens her legs out straight and doesn’t allow me to hold her comfortably. I relax my grip, change her position for a moment and then try again. She looks around a lot and seems to “take in” all that is around her. It is almost as if she is checking to make sure that all is familiar, and then she will look at me. After she reassures herself that she is indeed in the safe and capable hands of her Grandma, she will eventually relax and allow herself to be comforted. I love to hold her after she closes her eyes and take in all of the beauty that is distinctly her. I love the closeness and the bonding that I feel with her, I love that she trusts me enough to give into sleep while I am holding her, I love the statement I am making, and that she is “hearing”… “I will always love you Emma, and be here for you. You can trust me and depend on me.”
That is the same reassurance the Holy Spirit longs to give to each one of us. He understands that we will most likely not want to relax in His arms at first and that we will want to “look around” us and make sure that we are safe and that He is familiar. We will need to be reassured of His ability to care for us, and we will need to know that He loves us and longs to comfort us. He will not “put us down” when we stiffen against Him. He will be patient with us because He understands. He will do everything that He needs to do for us until we can trust Him, and we eventually begin to relax in His embrace. Then He will look down upon us as we slumber and He will be fulfilled inside because His purpose will be complete, for the moment. Love will shine on His face and we will feel it in His arms and we will know almost instinctively that this is the place where we have longed to be.
Written by Beverley A. Napier
February 23, 2013
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