Who comforts the woman – when in the flash of angry words and rising tempers, her fairytale life turns into a nightmare? And she realizes that instead of riding into the sunset with her knight in shining armor, she’s trapped in the isolated tower of her life, with the wicked villain?
Who comforts the child – whose innocence is forever shattered, when the very person most charged with protecting her (or him), the last person she (Or he) would suspect, becomes the monster that goes bump in the night?
Who comforts the mother – who holds the bruised and battered body of her child in her arms, as she grieves for the life this child would never have?
Who comforts the father – who struggles to cope (anyway he can) with his feelings of inadequacy, each time he looks into the anguished eyes of his hungry child?
I’ve known people like this…. I’ve been people like this!!! Probably some of you have, as well.
Sadly, statistics show – the world is made up of hurting people. The church is filled with what I call, “the walking wounded”
People – who by the definition of the world, and even the church – are “survivors”.
By our faith we are charged to believe that when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior – we believe He died for our sins. We are new creations in Christ and old things – our old selves – have past away.
And this is true, so very true. THANK GOD!!!
But while we surrender our sins at the foot of the cross. We very often remain burdened with the wages of sin – the by product of sin – the price we pay as a result of our sin, or the sins that have been committed against us.
We don’t surrender those to Him, but the Word says He paid our wages – the ransom.
Yet we remain crippled by our guilt, our shame, our sorrow or our grief.
We hold fast to the Scripture…..
“…He was wounded for our transgressions….”
That’s right, you can say it with me, Isaiah chapter 53 starting at verse 5 – the King James Version.
“ But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.”
What a powerful affirmation of our salvation!!
What a hope when we are ill or wounded!!!!
But our God never does things in half measures. He considers the whole, even if we only chose to concentrate on just a portion of His Mighty Work of Salvation.
He created us body, spirit and soul. His salvation is for us – body, spirit, and soul.
If we look at this chapter of Isaiah again, from just a few verses earlier, at verse 3, it says, (This time I’m reading from the New Living Translation)
He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
At the cross, Our Lord, Our King, Our Savior – not only bore our sins, He bore our sorrows and our grief!!!!
WOW!! Where did we ever get the notion that we were meant to be survivors?!!??
Survivors move past their pain, grief or sorrow. They sidestep their past hurts, careful not to ever address them, but go through life dragging those things around after them.
We are called to be more than a conqueror. What do conquerors do? They face their problems (their enemies) and overcome them. We are called to be OVERCOMERS. More than overcomers.
It dawned on me recently, that you can’t have the word overcomer, without the word recover.
That in order to overcome – to be victorious over our grief or sorrow – we have to allow HIM to cover us.
You see, when we are wounded, whether by our own sins or as a result of the sins of others – we are left exposed at that point of hurt.
For healing to occur – that exposed area has to be covered – re covered.
We are covered – by the blood of Jesus. 
I saw a special on Discovery Channel a few years ago, on the various martial arts.
Now they spoke with various masters of the art of “brick breaking” – I don’t know or remember if there was a proper technical name for it – but anyway these masters explained that when most students of this art started out they actually broke various bones in their hands.
But instead of that deterring them – they actually welcomed it. You see, it seems that when a bone is broken, the cells to that area and certain chemicals actually combine in that wounded area and fuse together. In that area, as the bone heals it actually calcifies – petrifies – like the petrified forest. It hardens at that point of the bone to be harder and stronger than it was before.
Well that’s the way the blood of Jesus Christ re-covers us at the point of our wounds. We are made stronger in His covering – His comfort.
We realize that the God of all creation, Jehovah El Shaddai- the most High God – is in Control. He is not only the Alpha and the Omega. He is our Alpha and Omega. Our Beginning and Our End. From before the world was even begun, our life was completed in Him. Before the world was even begun, His work on the cross for ME for YOU, was provided for.
Our hurts, our pains were not a result of God’s turning His back on us, rejecting us, or not caring. Our guilt, our shame does not make His plans for us void, or negate His purpose for us. He is in control.
Romans chapter 8 and verse 28 says:
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
IN ALL things He is working good. Not in spite of all things. Like Joseph, we can be assured that what the enemy meant for bad, God means for good. He means to prosper us and not to harm us.
We are not called to understand the Mind of God. Why He works things the way He does or what He means to accomplish. We just know that HIS PURPOSE WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED.
I Thank God for everything I’ve been through, for all I’ve overcome. Because they have all lead me to this place. This place of Salvation. An eternity with my Father, whose love for me knows no bounds.
I don’t know what His future for me holds – whether I’ll be successful in ministry, or rich or live in a mansion or in a village in Africa. But I do know – that I could never be more successful than I am now, or richer, or happier than at this moment, when I know who My Father is and whose child I am, and where I’ll spend my forever more.
Who Comforts the wounded?
2 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 3& 4 tells us. (Reading from the NIV)
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 have received from God
