For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
2 Corinthians 1:5–7, ESV
Suffering is a natural aspect of our faith. Not that we should seek to suffer, but in the realization of others’ struggles and for the sake of the Gospel, we will find suffering in our lives. There will also come the pain of rejection when we find that there will always be those who will reject the faith. Often, the ones who reject the faith are people we love. This fills us with grief as we may not know how to reach them and may cause our prayers to be filled with tears. As a community, we are called to bring comfort to one another as our hearts are heavy with loss, and our eyes are filled with tears. We, as brothers and sisters in Christ, are called to comfort the grieving hearts as they mourn the loss of a loved one. We stand with those who are left and who face abuse from a spouse who walks away or rejects Christ and the family. We come to the aid of those who have fallen into hard times or have faced a tragedy. When one becomes ill, we are to be the healing hands that offer prayer and assist in doing all that we can to care for their needs. As a community, we are united under Christ not to look away from suffering but to keep it ever before our eyes and seek paths in which we can be a people that carries the hope and promise of Jesus Christ with us as a blanket of comfort to ease the suffering and heal the wounds. In Christ, we see the eyes of the afflicted and see Christ whom we serve sitting before us, and, in us, those who find comfort from our hands see Christ in our service.
Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.