Storing up COMFORT AND HOPE

On Friday I received an email asking for prayer for a woman who had just come out of surgery. The doctor's found a tumor on her brain which was cancerous. They were giving her 4 months to live without chemo and 6 with. My heart ached as I read that email. I so desperately wanted to offer her hope that nothing is impossible with God. Man's proclamation of death over our lives is not necessarily God's. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. I know He can perform miracles. His ways are not our ways. What if the cure for cancer is already found and it isn't chemo or radiation? What if it's in the food He created and treating our bodies as temples, not trash cans?

I have read dozens of testimonies of people who were cured after their doctor told them nothing would work and they should go home and get their affairs in order. These cases remind me of Psalm 39:7 which says, "But now Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you." As much as I want to be cured of cancer for my sake I want to be cured for the sake of others. I want to give others COMFORT AND HOPE.

I went to bed Friday night with this burning on my heart and the next morning this is what LB. Cowman wrote in Streams In The Desert.
"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." Isaiah 40:1
"Store up comfort. This was the prophet Isaiah's mission. The world is full of hurting and comfortless hearts. But before you will be competent for this lofty ministry, you must be trained. And your training is extremely costly, for to make it complete, you too must endure the same afflictions that are wringing countless hearts of tears and blood. Consequently, your own life becomes the hospital ward where you are taught the divine art of comfort. You will be wounded so that in the binding up of your wounds by the Great Physician, you may learn how to render first aid to the wounded everywhere. Do you wonder why you are having to experience some great sorrow? Over the next ten years you will find many others afflicted in the same way. You will tell them how you suffered and were comforted. As the story unfolds, God will apply the anesthetic he once used on you to them. Then in the eager look followed by the gleam of hope that chases the shadow of despair from the soul, you will know why you were afflicted. And you will bless God for the discipline that filled your life with such a treasure of experience and helpfulness. God comforts us not to make us comfortable but to make us comforters."

I have always felt God has used me to encourage others. As He is healing my cancer I believe He is giving me an even greater ministry. God is daily applying His anesthetic to my life. He has given me hope that has chased the shadow of despair from my soul. Only through reading this devotion have I begun to bless God for the disciplined life I am having to lead because it is filling my life with a treasure of experience and helpfulness for others.

How have you suffered and been comforted? How has God bound up your wounds? How has He given you hope in the midst of your affliction?
Persevere through the training. God wants to use you. Don't waste your pain and sorrow. Give it to Him. There is a purpose and plan in it. Bless God for all of it.