There are times I press the “publish” button on these posts and think to myself, “did that even make sense?” My last blog post was one of those. If you haven’t read it you can check it out here!

Coming off the back heels of losing a job that I love due to COVID19, as honestly as I could, I tried to paint a picture for readers to understand the seat I am sitting in. I never want to dismiss anyone’s feelings, especially my own. Yet at the same time, as it always is the case, I wanted to align myself and hopefully help you align yourself with the truth of what God says.

To my surprise, that post got the most response out of anything I have written in a while. As text, comments, and emails came flooding in, what I realized is that in these unprecedented times, people long to know that they aren’t crazy. We allow them to know that to be true when we share bits and pieces of our personal lives with them. I see now more than ever that for some reason the Lord has given me the gift to articulate what is in my head in words. For some people, that isn’t the case. You like writing as much as you like running. We all have the thing that helps us make sense of the world. What is so beautiful is that it’s different for everyone but when we step into using whatever our method is so many other people benefit.

I had someone tell me, “thank you for helping me feel normal through this weird, always evolving, unsettling time.” I feel like the Lord has placed this sense of urgency in me again to write. These days we are living in are causing people to look high and low for some sort of way to make sense of all of this. While I can’t connect all the dots for you, the comment above has shown me that this is the time for me to see that there is a small part I can play. All of us always have a role, mine right now feels like just letting you in on what is going on in my head. That’s what I did in the last post and it seems its exactly what people were looking for.

I hope you walk today feeling more normal. I hope you walk away today feeling less crazy. I hope you walk away today knowing you are not the only one.

With that being said, let me tell you where my mind has been at this week. It arises in question form – Is God comforting me?

This past Sunday felt like a day where my footing slipped and I couldn’t get it back. I drove home from sister’s house crying the whole way. I laid in my bed watching church feeling like there was an agitated spirit in me that I couldn’t break. I watched hours of Netflix and didn’t feel bad about it. I didn’t change out of my pajamas. I ate popcorn for dinner. A full on blehh day.

It was Easter. Out of all the days of the year, wouldn’t this be the day that as a follower of Jesus joy would be rising up in me and the message of the gospel would light me up. That wasn’t happening though. I felt the weight of these days all at once. I felt the pain of some of the losses this pandemic has caused sitting on my chest. I thought about my two best friends and my brothers whose weddings I both won’t get to be at. I thought about financial pressures. I thought about another Monday approaching and it was too much.

I felt deep pain but I couldn’t understand why on Easter out of all days that what I was thinking was making me have to confess to Jesus – it doesn’t feel like enough.  I am not ever here to make a claim that I have this whole walking with Jesus thing figured out. However, as I’ve confessed this thought to Him multiple times over the last couple weeks I have been deeply ashamed that those words would come across my lips – It doesn’t feel like enough.

It made me feel unsettled inside. This wasn’t where I wanted my faith to be. So I knew it was time to dig deeper. What I found is that although what I thought I was saying is “it’s not enough” what I really meant was “the pain is still here.”  

I think about the ever rising suicide rates. I think about the waiting list at rehabs. I think about the mental health crisis. I think about gravesides. I think about hospital rooms with cancer diagnosis. Then I think about the long list of people I know whose anger with the Lord has increased as people have offered up a bible verse or the Christian cliché “everything happens for a reason.” I think about the doubt that has plagued the hearts of believes when the fiery furnace feels like their residency.

I think about people walking through any or all of the above who are devoted followers of Jesus who have found themselves feeling like nothing is changing within them so all of this faith thing must not be enough. I think about how many times someone on the other end of the phone facing incredible hurt has wanted to say “none of that Jesus stuff is working.” We feel stuck and we start looking for ways to figure out why we can’t pick up our feet. I believe the enemy has been twisting our own feelings and thoughts to convince us that we want to throw the towel in on our faith, when we don’t want that all. We want to know that God is going to do what He said He would.

I firmly believe that as you dissect the claim of “it’s not enough” or “Jesus isn’t doing anything,” at the core, what we are really saying is – my pain is still here. When you are the one feeling such a sense of hurt and you hear someone else talk about how the Lord was the only thing that got them through, you can feel guilty because to you that isn’t what you are experiencing.

When I saw this in myself, when I realized that I was wrong about what I was feeling, I changed the way of how I approached trying to get out of this snare of unbelief. It wasn’t that I didn’t think God was enough. I have seen the wooden cross on top of a hill with divinity Himself hanging. I have peeked into the empty grave filled with nothing but filled with everything. I trust fully that my confession of who I am as a sinner and my belief in who Jesus is has secured my soul for all of eternity. I believe that I had a price that needed to be paid and Jesus paid it in full. I believe He is enough.

What I was really asking was – why isn’t He comforting me?

It was time to pick up my shovel again and keep digging because I know that God promises all over scripture to comfort us. It couldn’t be that He had decided now to go back on His word. It couldn’t be that I was excluded from this. It couldn’t be that He was too busy in these days. This is why it is so important to root yourself in scripture. It allows you to pinpoint “this is what I am feeling” but “I know that is what God’s word says.” When we see the disconnects, then we have to go inward and see where our flesh is rotting something.

“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

It doesn’t feel like God is comforting me, but Paul calls Him the God of all comfort.

There’s a disconnect.

Okay, so what then? Ask more questions.

What do I think comfort means? What do I equate comfort with? What do I think God means when He says, “blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted?” What do other people think?

I started having conversations with friends and even put a poll on my Instagram to see what everyone thought of when they heard the word “comfort.” It was fascinating because everyone had their own interpretation. There was a common denominator though. Comfort is often associated with “I feel good.” Blankets, food, sweatshirts, cozy homes, slow days, and an ease about things.

That’s when I spotted the problem. We have what we think something means but there is always the literal meaning of what something means.

So what is that scripture above really saying because what I thought comfort meant isn’t what I am feeling right now? Maybe I’ve been understanding it wrong. We are told to set our minds on things above, eternity minded. I needed to think with heavenly language.

I needed a new definition

If you people only knew how many hours this past week I’ve been looking into this word: comfort. Specifically, in that 2 Corinthians passage by Paul. By any estimation 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 frames the Bible’s greatest text on comfort. The word “comfort” occurs multiple times in its noun and verb forms in this brief paragraph. The word is translated into the Greek word paraklésis. This word’s meaning is defined as: a calling to one’s aid,  to call alongside.

Let’s stop there. Anyone else surprised by that? Maybe it is just me but “a calling to one’s aid” isn’t what I thought Paul was saying. It is so beautiful though. Think about it this way….

This term is referring to the act of calling someone to oneself. The one called is led back to the one who calls. This is a request for help, consolation, encouragement, and exhortation. It would be like someone being off at battle, requesting for more troops to come, and those people showing up to help – a calling to one’s aid. How does that make any sense in the context of Paul’s passage? It actually makes perfect sense. Paul is saying God’s shows up. God comes alongside.

Him being the God of all comfort does not mean the God who alleviates all pain. Although, He can and one day He will. For us right now, Him being the God of all comfort means that He has never and will never ask us to walk through anything alone. It’s like that friend who shows up and knows they don’t have answers and they know you definitely don’t want them to say anything. Yet, we don’t need them to, we just need them to be with us.

That’s God’s heart for His children. He wants to be with us and He is. 

In John 14:16-17 we read Jesus saying, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” Other translations use advocate, counselor, or comforter instead of the word helper, referring to the Holy Spirit. They all come from the Greek word parakletos. Does that look familiar?

Paraklésis: a calling to one’s aid, to call alongside.

Paraclete: advocate/helper, most commonly referring to the Holy spirit  

Is God comforting me?

He is.

The dwelling of His Holy Spirit within us ensures it to be true. I can be confident at all times that God is comforting me, not based on my pain leaving, based on the fact He is staying.

Friends, I need you to know today that regardless of how you feel God has not gone back on His promise to be our comfort. I need you to know today that He is still doing just as He said He would. I need you to know today that walking with Jesus and the promises of His comfort do not mean He passes out dosages of Advil to subside the troubles we are facing.

I need you to know what Paul really meant when the called Him the God of all comfort. He meant He comes alongside us. I can know and you can know that the names of our God do not waiver. He doesn’t stop being who He is.

I don’t want to pass over the fact that for some, you still long for more. You need the darkness to retreat. You need the depression to end. You need the pain to subside. You long for Him to do something with the aches. I know, I have been there.  Our circumstances might not change but I believe us realigning ourselves with truth and roaring back in the face of the enemy is the best starting place for these journeys of grief we might be on.

You can know today that God is not a liar. He does not abandon. He is not a forgetter. He does not play favorites.

He stays near. He is near. You can trust Him. You can take Him at His word.

May that be what fans your faith today. May that be that makes you keep holding on. May that be what keeps you running this race.

You are going to make it and you won’t make it alone. There’s another set of footprints in the sand. They have been there the whole time.

Stand up. Pull your shoulders back. Lift your head high. You have a song of faith in you. Your faith is not defective. Don’t you dare let the enemy keep making think Jesus isn’t comforting you. He is doing just as He said He was. He is coming alongside us. He is within us.

“Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16

During quarantine I have been watching Lord of the Rings with my sister for the millionth time. So today, I leave you with Sam’s words to Frodo. They are everything I pray you will start to believe.

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.” – Tolkien

Don’t give up.