How Can I Find Comfort ?

A co-worker today told me about a friend of his whose nine year old son was killed this past weekend in a freak accident at his lake house. The family is devastated which is understandable. He said, "what can you say to someone in a situation like this?, I have not called him because I don't know what to say".  I ask you what can you say? How can you comfort a parent who has lost their child? Haven't you heard that parents are not supposed to out live their children? They are suppose to see them graduate from high school, get married and give them grandchildern.

Did you know that the shortest verse in the bible says that Jesus wept?  (John 11:35) Jesus was God the Son and He wept over His friend Lazarus, yet He knew that he would raise him from the dead. This tells us that Jesus sympathizes with us and just as He was moved to bring His friend back to life. He is moved to give this family and any other family that grieves life. Eternal life is what He is offering. When Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, he eventually died again, but for all who accept Christ, they will never experience death. Do you not believe that if Jesus allowed this child to die, that He is not a cruel God, but He will be faithful in comforting this family.  Jesus loved this child and He loves the parent and the little sister who is left behind to grieve over her older brother.

This tragedy consumes my thoughts, even this late at night. I feel the pain of these parents and the little sister.  I can say  to my co-worker that he can share with his friends that God the Father will never leave or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6) and for re-assurance Jesus, God the Son  promised to never leave us, nor forsake us.( Hebrews 13:5), and God is not a man that He should lie. (Number 23:19). I can say to Him, to be like Job's friend who was silent with him in his grief for seven days.

We as believers are to comfort others with the same comfort that the Lord has shown to us, but that is temporal because our comfort will not take away the heartache and pain that they experience, but God is the God of all comfort. (Corinthians1:3,4b) and He can take a broken heart and put it back together again. How do I know this?, it is because He did it for me, not once but twice. I do not grieve as those who have no hope, because I know that when my two daughters died, that they were absent from the body, but present with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). I now await His glorious appearance.