Message from Jay Hendricks, High School Teacher

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. (Isaiah 40:1)

My grandmother’s favorite devotional was Streams in the Desert by Mrs. Charles Cowman. She read it cover to cover many times, and I’m sure she knew parts of it from memory. The entry for January 11 begins with this verse from Isaiah and goes on to say,

“Store up comfort. This was the prophet's mission. The world is full of comfortless hearts, and ere thou art sufficient for this lofty ministry, thou must be trained. And thy training is costly in the extreme; for, to render it perfect, thou too must pass through the same afflictions as are wringing countless hearts of tears and blood. Thus thy own life becomes the hospital ward where thou art taught the Divine art of comfort.”

We experience difficulties so that we may better understand the difficulties others face. God comforts us so that we in turn may comfort others. Our problems are not pointless, which is important for me to remember as I sit here with my pinched nerve wondering, “why me?”

The devotional ends with this quote and a poem…

“God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters.”

They tell me I must bruise
The rose's leaf,
Ere I can keep and use
Its fragrance brief.

They tell me I must break
The skylark's heart,
Ere her cage song will make
The silence start.

They tell me love must bleed,
And friendship weep,
Ere in my deepest need
I touch that deep.

Must it be always so
With precious things?
Must they be bruised and go
With beaten wings?

Ah, yes! by crushing days,
By caging nights, by scar
Of thorn and stony ways,
These blessings are!