Comfort

Today a friend from the dorms came to me with some struggles. She was trying to deal with the stress and pressure of class. When she left I felt great compassion for her, and almost cried because I understood and sympathized with her pain. There are rare times in my life when I hurt because others are hurting. Most see me as fairly unemotional I think. I usually try to put a strong front on, but sometimes it slips a little.

After she left me I sank to my knees beside the bed and began to pray. I thanked God for the compassion He’d given me for my friend, and asked that He would help her and also help me to give her the words of wisdom she needed. Many people say I have the gift of wisdom and knowledge, and sometimes that may be true. But for me I sometimes don’t see that gift. When confronted with situations I often feel at a loss for wisdom. I can’t understand how it is my gift if I feel like I have so little of it.

But wisdom God indeed gave me. The girl is much better now, and the problems seem to be working themselves out. In the end what I decided was best to do was to send a few verses of comfort to her. Because God provided a very important piece of wisdom. I realized that I can never comfort as well as God can.

I may have given her a hug and some kind words, but God gives peace to the heart and soul. It is to Him we should turn when we are hurting. At the end of this blog I will list the verses I selected out, but for the time being I think there are some more important things that God is impressing upon my heart.

In British Literature yesterday we discussed the writings of Julian of Norwich. Though perhaps a little sketchy in some of her ideas, due to her belief in mysticism, Julian did have some delightful things to say about God and in the end I was impressed with her humility and her obvious delight in God and His work.

Two of the main parts we discussed in class from Julian’s book were the image of God as a mother, and the idea of God being our clothes.

To begin with Julian focuses on the unique idea that God is both our father and mother.

"It is a characteristic of God to overcome evil with good.

Jesus Christ therefore, who himself overcame evil with good, is our true Mother. We received our ‘Being’ from Him ­ and this is where His Maternity starts ­ And with it comes the gentle Protection and Guard of Love which will never ceases to surround us.

Just as God is our Father, so God is also our Mother.

And He showed me this truth in all things, but especially in those sweet words when He says: “It is I”.

As if to say, I am the power and the Goodness of the Father, I am the Wisdom of the Mother, I am the Light and the Grace which is blessed love, I am the Trinity, I am the Unity, I am the supreme Goodness of all kind of things, I am the One who makes you love, I am the One who makes you desire, I am the never-ending fulfilment of all true desires. (...)

Our highest Father, God Almighty, who is ‘Being’, has always known us and loved us: because of this knowledge, through his marvellous and deep charity and with the unanimous consent of the Blessed Trinity, He wanted the Second Person to become our Mother, our Brother, our Saviour.

It is thus logical that God, being our Father, be also our Mother. Our Father desires, our Mother operates and our good Lord the Holy Ghost confirms; we are thus well advised to love our God through whom we have our being, to thank him reverently and to praise him for having created us and to pray fervently to our Mother, so as to obtain mercy and compassion, and to pray to our Lord, the Holy Ghost, to obtain help and grace.

I then saw with complete certainty that God, before creating us, loved us, and His love never lessened and never will. In this love he accomplished all his works, and in this love he oriented all things to our good and in this love our life is eternal.

With creation we started but the love with which he created us was in Him from the very beginning and in this love is our beginning.

And all this we shall see it in God eternally."

From “Revelations of Divine Love” by Juliana of Norwich

 In class we were puzzled with this analogy and quickly began wondering if it was at all biblical. We were surprised to find that amongst the twenty some of us in the class we could come up with a few Bible passages that did lead to this idea.

We mentioned that there is a time God is characterized as a mother hen:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” Matthew 23:37

Similarly in Isaiah it says:

“As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” Isaiah 66:13

One of the even more powerful things we found was that God’s name is feminine and masculine at the same time, something that doesn’t come out in English translation.

In one of my Youth Walks, a devotional I use, it talked all about God’s various names. One of them is Elohim. According to the article “And the name Elohim is also mysterious because some scholars believe it’s a masculine plural form of a feminine singular noun. So the name includes both the masculine and the feminine—the one and only true God transcends gender”.

Our Bible study did a study on femininity and masculinity and how God put trends from himself into both. He is strong and mighty but he is also loving and comforting. God takes both roles of father and mother, but we often forget the motherly aspect of God. We think of Him as strong and mighty, we might even see Jesus as tender and loving, but we forget that role of God being both mother and father. When we see God as our mother we tap into one of the greatest gifts God gave mothers. Comfort.

Father’s can comfort too, but mother’s always seem to be especially good at it (at least for those of us who are blessed with a wonderful mother). Mother’s bandage our owies and kiss us goodnight and maybe sing us a lullaby. That’s not to say that daddy isn’t special and can’t do these things too, but there is something special about a mother’s comfort.

And so with this, draw close to your mother God. For He is good and loving and comforts us in our times of weakness.

Similar to this allusion of God as our mother was Julian’s comparison of God as our clothes.

Julian says in her book: “He is our clothing, who wraps and enfolds us for love, embraces us and shelters us, surrounds us for his love, which is so tender that he may never desert us. And so in this sight I saw that he is everything which is good, as I understand” (485).

 The idea was so strange to the class that many of us shook our heads. Our teacher even joked “God is our snuggie”. We laughed in delight.

Thinking on it further we decided that this was not as easy to find a Biblical bases for, but at the same time we saw some items that might be like clothes.

We mentioned that God is mentioned as our refuge, our fortress, both of which are protective like

“The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” Psalm 18:2

There are several verses in the Bible that include the words clothed:

You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
Psalm 30:11

May your priests be clothed with your righteousness; may your faithful people sing for joy.’” Psalm 132:9

I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. Isaiah 61:10

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 2^nd Corinthians 5: 1-3

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Galatians 3: 26-27

There are so many different ideas in these different verses. We see that God makes us new by clothing us in salvation, and in Christ. The illusion of clothing seems to often be one of being new and redeemed in Christ. We are naked and dirty and starving children wandering through the dark forest and when God, the king, finds us he takes us back to His palace and washes and cleans us and puts us in fresh new garments. The ideas here all seem to be a representation of how God makes us new. In Julian’s words He is our clothes because He has made us like Himself and redeemed us.

But I really think the metaphor of clothing goes back to that idea of comfort and love and just being wrapped up in the warmth of God’s great compassion for us. Clothes are comforting sometimes. When we’re cold we wrap up. Clothes provide protection, warmth, security, and, yes, comfort. Similarly God is our protector, our fortress, our refuge…our comfort.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” 2 Corinthians 1:3

So yes, the teacher was right in a way. God is our snuggie. God is our warm blanket we can wrap ourselves in when we feel alone, or hurt, or scared, or nervous, or confused. God is our comforter.

I’m so glad to have a God who comforts. I know my friend was greatly comforted, and I have been too. God comforted my feelings of inadequacy by showing me that He could take care of what I couldn’t do. He can work even in the small little things I say that don’t feel very important.

All I can say to Him is thank you. And after writing all about snuggies and blankets and love and comfort I long to be wrapped up in His warm loving arms, and the greatest joy is the fact that I am. I have a God who loves me with a love deeper than the oceans and higher than the heavens.

So I encourage you today if you are feeling lost or scared or hurt to draw near to the God who comforts. Call out to your heavenly father and mother. Let Him draw you into a warm embrace. Let Him clothe you in His deep love and righteousness. Let Him be your comfort.

 

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. Genesis 28: 15

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Psalm 46: 1

Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. Psalm 62: 8.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29: 11

I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who have a crushed spirit. Psalm 34: 18

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4: 6
The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him. Nahum 1:7

Works Cited

http://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010807_giuliana-norwich_en.html

Damrosch, David and Kevin J. H. Dettamar (ed.) The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Longman. New York. 2010.

www.biblegateway.com