"The true consolations of religion are not rosy and cozy, but comforting in the true meaning of that word: com-fort: with strength. Strength to go on living." -- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
I heard this other day* while walking and listening to the audiobook. "Comfort" means with strength. I thought about it and broke down the word: "com" means "with," and "fort" is presumably short for "fortitude." I had never seen that before and the thought shed new light on what I consider comfort to be. I had a similar experience at one point with the word "encourage," when I realize it literally meant "to put courage into." Sometimes you can be so familiar with a word that you fail to see the pieces that comprise it.
So all that to say, to comfort someone is to inspire fortitude in them; and to be comforted is to be fortified. Fortitude is courage in pain or through adversity. To be comforted is to be encouraged. It is to breath life and strength out where death and weakness fill the atmosphere.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
Those who are hurting or in pain do not need our empathy. They don't need us to feel sorry for them. And if they want us to feel sorry for them, we shouldn't. It doesn't help them and it may hurt us. Sympathy does not surrender its strength in order to love the weak, it leverages its position to genuinely assist the hurting. The steady hand does not help the shaking one by shaking it, but by firmly grasping it and saying, "It's going to be okay." The sound mind does not assist the shaken one by entering into the stupor of the other, but by speaking soundness into the swirl. To comfort is to share your strength, not to abandon it. To comfort is to give something you have to someone who desperately needs it. The desperate do not need us to become like them, they need us to be willing to employ our momentary resilience for their benefit.
Psalm 71:21
Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side
God comforts because He is strong. He can offer you help because He is not tossed in the same boat as you are. He is an anchor inside the boat. He is there with you, but not tossed like you. He doesn't enter into the storm as another on the verge of drowning, but as one who can walk on water or calm the waves. Comfort is infusing fortitude into another. God is the God of all comfort because He is all powerful. Rest assured, no situation is beyond His control and His supply of strength is unlimited.
"We all try to accept with some sort of submission our afflictions when they actually arrive. But the prayer in Gethsemane shows that the preceding anxiety is equally God's will and equally part of our human destiny. The perfect Man experienced it. And the servant is not greater than the master. We are Christians, not Stoics. We are told that an angel appeared 'comforting' him. But neither comforting in Sixteenth Century English nor [Greek: ennischyon] in Greek means "consoling". "Strengthening" is more the word. May not the strengthening have consisted in the renewed certainty -- cold comfort this -- that the thing must be endured and therefore could be?"
-- C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm
The thing must be endured and therefore it can be.
Psalm 119:50
This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.
God's Word gives life. It quickens the dying soul and enlivens the languishing spirit. In your affliction, reach out to Him. When others are hurting, draw on Him in order to have something to give to them. True comfort is not simply sweet sounding words, but words that empower the hurting one to endure. Sweet sounding words may actually prolong the pain by making it more enjoyable. Fortitude is not merely feeling better about one's self or situation, but feeling faithfully determined to see it through by grace and by grit regardless of what happens.
“In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth -- only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
*7/27/21 at 3:30p
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