February 2

As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. — Isa 66:13

Every one knows how a mother comforts her child. It is not so much by words as by love’s tenderness.

In great sorrow we do not care to hear arguments and reasons – not even verses of Scripture; we want simply to rest in silence on the bosom of love. Jesus put God’s comfort among the Beatitudes: “Blessed are they that morn, for they shall be comforted.” There must be something very precious, very rich in comfort that makes it worth while even to have sorrow to get it.

Some of us think we are comforting people when we sit down beside them in their trouble and sympathize with them, as we call it, going down into the depths with them, but doing nothing to lift them up. To comfort is to strengthen.

We comfort others truly when we make them stronger to endure, when we enable them to pass through their sorrows victoriously. That is the way Christ comforts. He sympathizes with them, but it is that He may make them strong to endure.