Parakalein

Comfort is an obsession in our society.  As is its companion "ease".  If we can make it easier and more comfortable then we are good.  The problem is that ease and comfort cause us to lose more than we gain.

The following quote os form a pastor in Cleveland Ohio named, Rev. Christina Villa:
"The risk of too much comfort is not so much that you'll become decadent and immoral.  The risk is that you'll become afraid. The more comfort you acquire, the more you fear life's "rough places" and begin to devote your life to smoothing them out." 


Paul wrote in II Corinthians 1:4 "The God of all comfort (the Father of compassion) comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the same comfort that we ourselves have received".  This comfort faces all fear and offers a prayer that transforms the uncomfortable into stretching us in faith and imbuing us with courage.


It is not about "soft, puffy and fluffy comfort" it is about the comfort that allows you to sleep on the hard ground of adversity or the pointed nails of suffering.  God's comfort is the realization that God holds me in the hollow of good strong hands of comfort that provide a holding that strengthens me from the inside out.   It is the transforming grace of God that exudes comfort from and imbues comfort in the stone on which Jacob laid his head, the nails that held Jesus on the cross, and in the wailing wall of all loss and grief.


During lent we are remind of this kind of comfort.  Not the external comfort of a soft bed or an easy day but the internal comfort of God's presence.  A pillow of grace you can wrap around your head and heart and let your troubled body rest.