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Divorce can bring grief so intense that it resembles the grief of a family death. (Some people who have gone through both insist that divorce is worse.) You'll need to draw on your own times of sorrow, whether it's sorrow over past sin or over losses you've suffered. Try to remember how God and his followers comforted you. Then pass on the comfort you received.

There's nothing like having come through a dark time to give confidence to a friend who's in the middle of one. Listen respectfully to any doubts he expresses about God, any sorrow he feels, or his fears for the future. As you do this, you demonstrate how God still loves him and will walk with him through his time of trouble (1:3, 4).

Sometimes the most comforting thing you can do for a friend is simply to be available and to let him express his pain and fear without judgment. He's going through a time when tunnel vision may take over, and his perspective may be temporarily lost. So listen with one ear tuned to wisdom from God. As you offer comfort, expect God to continue to bring new levels of meaning and healing to your own experience with suffering. (See also Job 13:5-15; Isaiah 43:2-4; Isaiah 61:1-3.)

Good Words to Remember:
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 tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Corinthians 1:3, 4

Today's Challenge:
How can you bring comfort to a friend today?

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian Bible Studies.

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