DAY ELEVEN

Helping another is my healing.

The loneliness in pain can be weighty, but for every inch of loneliness is miles of fellowship. Because now you know more about suffering than you ever have. And that means you’re more connected to humanity than you’ve ever been. You are softer. You are relatable. You are a resource for God’s work in others’ pain. 

The Father of Compassion has comforted you because You are His, and you are loved. Through the grace of Christ, you are not worse off because of this pain; nor are you left the same! The One who makes all things new never leaves things be. And the byproduct of God’s comfort is the power to comfort others in the ways He comforts you.

This is encouragement to those of us wondering if pain is pointless. We find great Hope in God’s redemptive guarantee. It is far easier to endure the furnace when we know God brings good out of the furnace.

God’s transformation in you is worth celebrating. Praise Him for it! He is turning this for His glory and your good. Trust Him before you see it–though I suspect you can already see it. Now you know how to pray for similarly situated people. Now you know how to quietly serve them. Now you know how to give less fixing, more listening, less words, more presence. This is His work in you. Your pain is not more powerful than your God. You are His, and He is God!

God’s work in you proves He has plans for you. He has not let you be. He loves you too much for that. So when you are worn from the pain and bills still need paid, Christmas gifts still need ordered, deadlines still need met, you must remember: you are still here, you are still living, and God is not done. You must squarely wedge your stake into His Hope, and you must keep going in Him.

Ask the God of All Comfort to show you whom to comfort. There is someone near you this Christmas that needs to know what God has done in your pain. There is no healing like helping someone else heal. 

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”

2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (NIV).

Prayer. Lord, will You show me how You’re using my pain for Your glory and my good? 

Application. Today, I will help someone near me who’s hurting.