Thanks to the worst case of laryngitis I have ever experienced, this is a #throwbackthursday. And honestly, I’m so excited about it. Because the words I’m sharing with you are some of my most favorite words I have ever had the pleasure and joy of writing and speaking.
I’m sharing Chapter Two of This Hope: A Journey of Getting to Know God—full chapter in audio, and a select portion written below.
Wild to think we’re coming up on the three year anniversary of the book publication and first anniversary of the audiobook release!
Praying these words meet you right where you are today.
The feelings we feel when we are in our deepest sorrow forever sleep peacefully just beneath the surface, ready to wake whenever we see a need for shared suffering and borrowed hope.
Soft hearts are where the good things grow.
Compassion, empathy, and kindness at the top of the list. When sorrow and suffering have done the painful work of softening our hearts, we see the sorrow and suffering of others in a new way. When we are reminded of our humanity, we see the humanity of others with loving eyes—eyes that understand we are all going through something. It may not be the same things, but we are all going through some things.
Our stories are for us, but they are not just for us.
Not only are our stories divinely designed to help us get to know God, but they are also divinely designed for us to help the world get to know God—maybe the great big whole wide world, but more often our own little worlds. Your story is helping you get to know God in a way that only you can so that you can help the world get to know God in a way that only you can.
“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 affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
This wordy verse is so dear to me because it’s such an encouragement to not waste what God gives you in your journey of getting to know him. We are comforted to be a comfort. We share in sufferings, and we share in comfort.
Receive what you’re given, and then give it away. God is infinitely abundant. If you get to know him as a protector, he won’t stop protecting you just because you share that comfort with someone else. If you get to know him as a friend, he won’t stop being your friend just because you share that comfort with someone else. Your story is for you, but it is not just for you.
I believe with my whole heart that God weaves together the stories of people who need each other. We all need people to comfort us, and we all need to be a comfort to someone. My pastor’s wife comforted me at that Starbucks, and what a gift it’s been to my heart to be able to comfort others along the way.
Suffering is suffering, and whatever suffering you experience softens your heart to the suffering of others. Suffering is part of all of our stories, and our stories connect us. Compassion, empathy, and kindness are some of the most precious gifts that come from the connectedness of suffering. That connection only intensifies when your suffering is similar. It’s almost like an unspoken bond—thoughts and feelings and emotions floating between you that only you’ve felt. There is comfort that comes in not having to explain everything or even say anything at all because they already know. It’s sweet and sacred.
No matter the suffering your journey has held, I bet you can spot someone who’s going through something similar a mile away. I can recall so many instances where I would meet someone for the first time and yet, I just knew they were also experiencing infertility. It’s mostly in the way women answer the question, “Do you have any kids?” Not yet. (Said with no other details and a tight-lipped, no-teeth smile.) Or in the way a woman talks about or looks at children and folds her arms tight to her aching heart and empty belly.
I would imagine there is likely a tell for every kind of suffering. And I would imagine that no matter what kind of suffering you’ve experienced, it always seems like you meet people who’ve been where you’ve been, been where you are, are where you are, or are where you’ve been. It’s not a coincidence. It’s God’s divine design because he delights in us comforting each other. When we come alongside one another to offer comfort, love, compassion, empathy, and kindness, we are reflecting the heart of God.
Gorgeous photo by my fabulous friend, Ricki Stewart. She brought along her copy of my book on a trip she took to wine country and sent me this precious picture that so beautifully represents good things growing in soft soil.
