Compassion That Comforts

Today's episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Real Comfort for Your Deepest Sorrows"

"How to Care for Caregivers"

"Takeaways 1–10"

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Dannah Gresh: Ever get stuck in one of those Chinese finger traps? You know, those little stretchy tubes that fit over your index fingers? Our natural instinct is work at it . . . to pull as hard as you can. But if you could just resist your urges and . . . just relax, that’s where the freedom comes from.

I think comforting someone who is in grief can be like trying to get out of a Chinese finger trap. We try too hard. We fill the space with hollow efforts, words that don’t work. But if you could just relax . . . Well, I’ll come back to that as we unfold one of the most powerful secrets to providing Christ’s comfort to others.

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m your host, Dannah Gresh. 

I’ve got a magnificent line up for you today as we both comfort your heart and muscle you up to comfort others. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and pastor and author Tim Challies are in the wings, along with Deborah Howard. She's a former hospice nurse who knows a thing or two about how to comfort people going through a lot as they care for others. As I listened to the content my team pulled together for this episode, it was like God’s Spirit took a holy highlighter to a common thread. Over and over I saw this thread revealing the secret to true comfort. 

• It’s not commiserating by telling someone how you’ve survived pain. 
• It’s not throwing Scripture verses at them like some anti-venom to pain. 
• It’s not hollow promises like, “God’s going to use this, you know!”

Of course, those things aren’t bad. Scripture, of course, is very very good. But I think our natural instinct is to just say stuff to fill up the sadness in the silence of someone who is grieving. Today I want to ask this question, "What if we’re trying too hard?" What if the secret to comforting is simpler and requires us to resist our natural urges too work so hard at it and instead, just relax and be with them there . . . in the sorrow, in their pain. 

Let’s dive right into a riveting conversation I had with Tim Challies. He knows about needing comfort! His son, Nick, was a seminary student, newly engaged to his fiancée, Ryn. Nick’s dream was to pastor a small church somewhere in his homeland, Canada. His future looked bright. Instead, he was suddenly, and very unexpectedly, gone—called to his forever homeland in heaven. 

I sat down to ask Tim how he experienced God’s comfort through that tragedy. And well, the conversation was rich with the thread of “being with” those in sorrow. Again, this is Tim Challies.

Tim Challies: We knew God was present with the Spirit. Of course, just that deep sense that God was present with us. God was present through the Word just as that Word came to our minds or we read it in Scriptures or people brought it to us, God was present. 

And then, God was present through His people. He very quickly dispatched His people to come to be with us and to, as much as anything, bring truth. They just reminded us of the great truths that we as Christians are so dependent on and those great truths that we love so much and that we need and cling to in our sorrows.

Dannah: Can you tell me what were some of the things the gifts—the Scripture gifts or truth gifts—that really left a mark or helped you through?

Tim: Yeah, many people came with just a verse here and a verse there and each one of them true. In times of sorrow, you need something to anchor yourself to when everything seems disoriented, everything seems confusing. You need to anchor yourself to something. And really, what you need to anchor yourself to are those unassailable truths that God makes so clear in His Word. 

I think personally, for me more than anything, it was the Psalm 23, that passage so many of us turn to in our times of deep joy and deep sorrow, but focusing on the Good Shepherd there in Psalm 23. The Word says, “Even though I pass through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” And just the sense that as we're passing through this, this valley of the shadow of death, God was with us. 

In fact, God had led us through this. This was His will, His purpose for us, and we could cling tightly to Him and really rely on Him.

Dannah: I wonder what advice you might have for some of us who aren't experiencing that kind of grief in our own families, but we have friends who are. What's something that we can do that can be helpful, because I know so many times in our lack of experience, we do things that hurt more than help. What advice do you have for us.

Tim: I think one of the things we all fear in our times of grief is that our loved one will be forgotten. And if our loved one is forgotten, we wonder if their life was really significant or meaningful. 

So, what we found so encouraging to us is when people just bring memories. You don't have to worry that you'll be making your loved one sad, they're already sad. 

So, you're not going to bring sorrow into their lives. They're already sorrowful, but what you can do is bring joy by bringing memories, just loving memories, fond memories, funny memories. Just speak about those things that you loved, and they loved.

I think that just reminds us that we aren't the only people who loved our loved one. We're not the only people who miss him, but other people do as well. I think that's been a tremendous blessing and encouragement to us, and I'm sure others would attest the same.

Dannah: It makes me want to ask because so many of us did feel like we journeyed through this with you, what's a sweet memory you have of your son, Nick.

Tim: The memory I cling to is really my final memory at that time we spent two weeks together right before. This was in the time of COVID. We had to cross the border as Canadians. So, we were forced into this two-week isolation quarantine once we got to the U.S. And so, I spent two weeks with Nick and with Abby in a borrowed basement apartment and just had some lovely times together. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. 

And so, we just spent time together playing games and having fun. And then when that time was up, I took them to campus. My final memory of Nick is just him walking away hand in hand with his girl that he had hoped to marry. That one is very precious and very close to my heart.

Dannah: What a precious memory and what a gift from the Lord, that a quarantine would turn out to be treasure for you. 

Tim: God is very good. He's very good at redeeming hardships. And that's exactly what he did. It was just such a precious time, the two of us together there in that borrowed basement somebody had so kindly let us stay in their place. And you know, just such good memories.

Dannah: Well, you are what I would call a cathartic writer. I can tell when you're writing that you're processing. I tend to be that way too when I write. And you've written a book for us, Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God. Tell us about that.

Tim: The very evening that Nick died, I started writing. I started writing partly the blog posts you referenced earlier, just telling people what had happened. But also, just for my own purposes. Writing is just how I think, how I process life's events. 

And over that first year, I wrote an awful lot. As the year went on, I started to think, Well, maybe I could take this writing and turn it into something. Some of it had been placed on the blog, a lot of it had been kept private. But as the year progressed, I thought, Well, maybe there's a book here that would just chart one person's journey through grief, and maybe that would be helpful to other people. 

And so, the book begins on the evening we learned the news that Nick had died. It ends exactly one year later on the first anniversary. It just charts these seasons of sorrow, this season of sorrow, depending how you see it. I hope and trust it'll be helpful to other people, as all of us are going to endure some sort of sorrow, some sort of loss in this world.

Dannah: Hmm, did you hear how God was with Tim in His pain? Maybe we should follow the example of the Great Comforter and just slow down to be present when someone is experiencing grief. That was Tim Challies sharing how God comforted him through the loss of his son, Nick.

This month at Revive Our Hearts, we’ve been focusing on the theme of compassion. So today we’re talking about compassion that comforts. We’re going to soon soak in one of my most-treasured passages of Scripture: 2 Corinthians chapter 1:

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. (v. 3)

My friend, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, will help us squeeze four vital truths from that book of the Bible. But first, Deborah Howard worked for many years as a hospice nurse. As you can imagine, she’s had a front row seat to see how comforting someone works, and how sometimes the one who needs comfort is the caregiver. I wonder if that’s you? Here’s Nancy, speaking with Deborah Howard. Remember, watch for that thread I mentioned: just being with someone.

Nancy: So what can we say that would be meaningful and helpful and encouraging at that point?

Deborah Howard: We are all called to be comforters. So we are not off the hook just because it may not be easy for us, or it doesn’t come naturally to us. One of the purposes of suffering is to teach us to comfort others in the same way that we have been comforted. This is one of the purposes that God give us in the Scriptures, and so anything that we can do to come along side that person who is grieving will be helpful, will be comforting.

And there are times that you ask yourself, “What can I say that is going to make a difference?” Well maybe nothing, but just your presence there will speak volumes. Sometimes just a thoughtful, kind, warm hug will tell them I am hurting for you. And a lot of times if you are just honest with them and say, “You know what, I don’t know how to comfort you, but I want you to know that I am hurting for you. I don’t know any words of wisdom to say to you, but just know that I care for you, and I am there for you if you need me.”

Just to be honest in that way, that is comforting. Isn’t it? Wouldn’t you find that comforting?

Nancy: It is. I find that one of the most comforting things people have done for me in times of loss and that I can do for others in their time of loss is to take them to the throne of grace.

Deborah: Absolutely.

Nancy: By just praying with them, to put my arm around them, to lift them up to the God of all comfort, the God of all peace, the God of all grace and to say in their presence, “Lord, I don’t know what to say or how I can minister to my friend here at this moment. I can’t really know what they are going through, but You do know. I thank You that You care. I pray that You would minister tailor made grace to this person in this situation, at this moment. May they know the sense of your presence. Assure them of that; give Your grace to them." As I lift them up to the throne of grace, I become an instrument, a channel through whom God can flow His grace and His comfort and His peace into their life.

Deborah: In a more practical vein, there are a lot of things that you can do to help that person, that caregiver, who is on call 24/7. This is one of the hardest jobs in the world. It causes such grief and such exhaustion. So anything that you can do to lighten their load is important, but I do have some suggestions on how you can be helpful.

One of them is to . . . It is really such a luxury to be able to relax. So you can say to that person, “Why don’t you let me come over and sit with John,” or whatever, “and I will sit with him and let you just go relax and take a long bath, take a nap.” A nap is something that the caregiver hardly ever gets. They are just about always sleep deprived. So just to be there with that person, and you don’t have to do any nursing care, just be there with them so that your loved one can go and take care of themselves for once.

Another thing is running to the grocery store. This becomes something that is very difficult to do when you are in charge of a person 24/7. You could call that person and say, “I have got to run to the grocery store in a little bit, what can I pick up for you?” And just make it an understood thing that you are going to pick up some things for them, because if you ask them . . .

Nancy: Is there anything I can do for you?

Deborah: If you say, “Anything that I can do for you, just call and let me know.” They are not going to take you up on that in most cases. But if you call with something specific, then yes, you can actually help them. They will say, “Yes, I do need milk and bread and eggs.” They can give you a little list, and you can minister to them in that way.

Another thing is to be there for them in ways that other people may not. If a person just comes home from the hospital for instance, or if a person has just taken a turn for the worse and your house is full of people, you just want two seconds to call your own. What you might do is call your loved one and say, “Why don’t I come over there and entertain your guests and allow you to go upstairs and spend some time by yourself.”

Just little things like that mean the world to a caregiver who is just always on. They always have to be on, entertaining, and there is just so much on their shoulders that anything that you can do helps.

I have got a friend and what he does is he goes and cuts people's lawns who are busy taking care of a loved one who has just come home from the hospital or whatever. He never even stops in to say hello. He just cuts their yard; he sweeps their porch.

Nancy: What a ministry!

Deborah: And then he leaves. That just takes off so much pressure. Be creative. Look at what the needs are and then fulfill those needs. It doesn’t even matter if you can’t go and talk to them about them.

Dannah: Now, there’s some helpful, practical advice from Deborah Howard, a former hospice nurse with a tender heart. Compassion that comforts on some hands-on ways. Deborah captured her thoughts on what she calls “life’s final journey” in a book titled Sunsets. You’ll find a link to it when you visit ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s program.

Earlier I read from 2 Corinthians 1, about how the Lord comforts us so that we can, in turn, comfort others.

Not too long ago, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth commented on that passage, along with others from 2 Corinthians. She was sharing a list of twenty takeaways from twenty years of Revive Our Hearts. We’ll hear three, well, I guess really four of them. The third takeaway, she said, was that “Ministry is hard.” Or, as she put it . . .

Nancy: Life is hard—sometimes overwhelmingly hard. And the apostle Paul, once again, related to this. He says in chapter 1,

The sufferings of Christ overflow to us. (v. 5)

In verse 8 he speaks about our afflictions that took place in Asia. He said,

We were completely overwhelmed beyond our strength so that we despaired of life itself. (v. 8)

That word “afflictions” that Paul uses in 2 Corinthians is a word that means “to crush, to press together.” One Bible dictionary says that word conveys the idea of being squeezed or placed under pressure or crushed beneath a weight. It says, “This word does not refer to minor inconvenience or mild discomfort but to great difficulty.”

Anybody feel that crushing weight of this season that God has you in? Following Christ and serving Him this side of heaven is not a vacation. It’s not a sight-seeing expedition. It means hard work. It means sacrifice. It means tears. It means bearing burdens and bearing pressure and engaging in battle.

But the truth we see in God’s Word is that pressure sanctifies. We need pressure. The greatest growth in our lives happens more often than not in the hardest places. I see some heads nodding. You’ve experienced that as you look back on your life.

You’ve heard me say it often in Revive Our Hearts: Anything that makes us need God is—what?—a blessing. You see, God is not concerned about using us to build a ministry, in whatever our role may be, as He is about using the ministry, with its hardships and its heartaches, its afflictions, to build us, to conform us to the image of Christ.

And so we come to number four is that God’s grace is sufficient for us in every hardship we face.

When we come to chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians, you remember the passage where Paul begged the Lord for his thorn in the flesh to be removed? Paul was a godly man. He was a praying man. But God did not grant him that request. Paul says,

But God said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you." (v. 9)

That’s not the answer Paul had hoped for. That’s not what he had asked for. But God gave Paul something even better than what he’d asked, and that was an infusion of divine grace.

You and I will never face a crisis or a situation for which God’s grace is not more than enough.

Sometimes I find we just have to counsel our hearts and say, “I know I’m going through this; this thing that is crushing me. It’s pressing me down. It’s weighing in on me.” (In some aspect of your life or ministry, we’ve had this happen at Revive Our Hearts again and again.) But I counsel my heart and say, “Thank You, Lord, that Your grace is sufficient for me, for this hardship—present tense, right now—and for every hardship that’s around the bend that I don’t know about yet.”

I know I’m looking into the eyes of a widow, a mom who just lost a grandchild not too many months ago, and other hardships and heartaches. And the thing that encourages our hearts in the midst of those afflictions is reminding ourselves that God’s grace is sufficient for us.

Here’s the fifth takeaway: God draws near to encourage us when we are suffering. You see this throughout the book of 2 Corinthians. In chapter 1, Paul calls Him “the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort” (v. 3) (Do you think all comfort would be enough? All comfort.) And then in the next verse he says, “He comforts us in all our afflictions” (v. 4).

Okay, and I just made some people cry in this room. I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry because I know, as I look in your faces, that these are tears of, yes, pain and hurt and loss; but also I’m watching, and I’m looking into the eyes of women who have experienced the comfort and the presence of Christ in the midst of loss and suffering.

God draws near. He’s the God of all comfort. He comforts us in—how many of our afflictions? All of our afflictions. Those trials that squeeze us, that overwhelm us, they press us closer to the heart of our heavenly Father. They provide an opportunity for us to experience His comfort, His sufficiency.

And what does God do in our tears, in our hard places? He comes alongside us to help us in our time of need. The greater the suffering, the greater our experience will be of His comfort.

Number six, staying with this point of afflictions, our trials are purposeful, and they are for the sake of others. Now, they’re purposeful in our own lives, but they’re also purposeful in the lives of others who watch us go through those trials.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1,

So that we may be able to comfort those that are in any kind of affliction through the comfort we ourselves received from God, for just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. (vv. 4–5)

So, we suffer. God draws near with His comfort and His grace. And then we become a channel, a conduit of God’s grace and God’s comfort in the lives of others.

How often, as I look back over these twenty years of Revive Our Hearts’ ministry, have I seen how God has used the hard places, the pressing places, the afflictions, the hardships in my own life to make me more compassionate, to help me be able to draw near to others who are hurting or facing afflictions. So, our trials are not wasted. They’re purposeful, and they allow us to become a means of blessings in the lives of others.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, sharing some lessons she’s learned over the years. Did you hear how she mentioned that God draws near when we hurt? There’s that "be with" thread again. Sometimes, we just need to be like God and slow down and be with those who hurt.

Nancy shared that message as Revive Our Hearts was turning twenty years old. You can hear the whole list of twenty takeaways from 2 Corinthians, by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, and clicking on today’s episode. It’s called “Compassion That Comforts.” 

Compassion is the main theme of a booklet by Erin Davis. The title is Uncommon Compassion. Here’s the subtitle: Revealing the Heart of God. Isn’t that great? As you and I study and learn more about the compassionate heart of our heavenly Father, we can apply it to the way we express compassion to those around us. 

We’ll send Uncommon Compassion to you as a thank-you for your donation of any amount to Revive Our Hearts. We’re listener-supported. That means we depend on friends like you to continue calling women all around the world to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. So get in touch with us, pray for us, and send a little money, and be sure to request the booklet on compassion by Erin Davis. Thanks. We appreciate it so much. You can give a gift at ReviveOurHearts.com and click where you see the word “Donate.” 

Next time on Revive Our Hearts Weekend, we’ll hear from Jen Wilkin and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, talking about women teaching other women. I hope you’ll tune in.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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