Comfort For The Challenges

PRIOR TO SPEAKING AT AN EVENT in a large Midwestern city, I was asked to meet privately with a discouraged young woman. I wasn’t sure how I could help, but I agreed to try. The woman fell into my arms when I entered the private room chosen for our meeting. She wiped her tears but was too emotional to talk.

“Let’s sit down here, and you can tell me how I can help,” I encouraged her, pointing to the couch.

After a few minutes, she composed herself. Taking a breath, she blurted out, “I was told to abort my baby.” And she started to cry again.

Immediately, tears formed in my eyes. It took a minute before I could get any words out. “I understand. That was exactly what the doctor told me,” I explained softly.

“Really?” she said as she sat up and stopped crying.

“Yes,” I said. “We lived in the Philippines at the time, and there was only one recommended doctor in the area. She told me that our baby was ‘a mass of fetal tissue—a tumor,’ and that if we didn’t abort, my life would be in danger.”

“What did you do?” she asked.

“My husband and I left the doctor’s office and never returned,” I responded.

“What happened?” she asked.

I first cautioned her, “Please understand that I’m not recommending our choice without further tests and another doctor’s opinion. But,” I continued, “it was the only choice we could make. There was no ‘plan B’ doctor on our island, and we were not about to abort the baby we had prayed for by name.”

We talked about the things only women in our situation would understand. We even laughed at the unhelpful comments we’d both received from well-meaning people and finished each other’s sentences as we discussed the hard stuff. Then we prayed together. This woman knew I understood how she felt. She hugged me again before I had to leave to speak to the assembled group, and neither of us wanted to let go.

It’s hard to put into words the love God gave me for this woman I had just met. I felt as if a piece of my heart went with that precious pregnant woman when she left the room.

Earlier in my life, I wouldn’t have had much to say to her. What made the difference? I had experienced what she was experiencing. I remember feeling alone and afraid when my life and pregnancy were threatened. Only my husband supported me. In human terms, the odds were not in my favor. They weren’t in hers either, but God was able to help me comfort her.

When the woman left the room, she expressed that for the first time since getting this devastating recommendation about her baby, she sensed peace. She was eager to see her husband, who greeted us at the door and wrapped his arms around his wife. He graciously thanked me for my time.

I’m not a trained counselor. My spiritual gift is not mercy. I don’t know the correct medical terms. But I was able to comfort that hurting woman because the Father of all comforts had comforted me in a similar situation. Second Corinthians 1:3-4 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

What hard things have you faced, or are you facing now, that God can use to enable you to comfort someone with similar challenges? God loves us, and He has a plan to use difficulties for our good and the good of others. I don’t know the end of this woman’s story, and I don’t know your story either. But God wrote each of our stories, and He is trustworthy. He can use everything we face for His glory.

REFLECTION

Read 2 Corinthians 1:3-7. In our fast-paced society, we rarely stop long enough to listen to someone’s story. Ask the Lord for sensitivity, compassion, and the wisdom to be able to comfort others who are going through something you have experienced.