How to Comfort Well

It happened over a decade ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Less than a year after my husband accepted his dream job in the National Football League, working for a coach he admired, our staff was fired. I was devastated. I grieved for my husband and for my son, who would now potentially have to attend three different high schools. Our local news and the conversations of people everywhere I went enthusiastically weighed in on who should be hired as the team’s next head coach. It was so hard.

The most painful moment came in the form of a question from a friend. She asked if I thought we might have stepped outside of God’s will in leaving the Christian university where my husband had been coaching in order to take the NFL job. I thought she had called to offer comfort, but her words felt like judgment.

Job’s Miserable Comforters

In Scripture, Job suffered tremendous loss. His three friends came to comfort him but quickly became impatient watching him suffer. Their own ideas about God’s justice were threatened by the notion that Job could be suffering without cause. They reasoned that he must have done something to deserve all that had happened to him. They needed Job to be guilty so that they could feel safe.

But we know from Job 1:8 that this was not the case:

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” (ESV)

Job’s suffering wasn’t because he had offended God. God was pleased with Job. In fact, it was God’s praise that drew Satan’s attention to Job, causing him to ask God for permission to afflict him.

Failed Attempts to Comfort

Over the years, I have been on the receiving end of many failed attempts to comfort. I am confident that these are often well-meaning, but nevertheless, they provide little to no comfort. We are currently facing another move as the result of a lost job. Job loss is hard. Moving is hard. Leaving friends is hard. Starting over is hard.

Some recent examples of failed attempts to comfort include:

“You’ve been through this before, so you know how to deal with it.” Would you say this to someone who is battling cancer for the second time? Miserable comforter.

“You’ll be fine. You always bloom where you’re planted.” Thanks, but that doesn’t make pulling up roots any less painful. Miserable comforter.

Lest you think I am only pointing the finger at others, I am just as guilty! I cringe at the times I have given trite advice to new mothers struggling through sleepless nights, or used Romans 8:28 to minimize someone’s painful situation. Miserable comforter.

How to Comfort Well

I don’t want to be a miserable comforter! On my journey to becoming a compassionate comforter, I have identified three principles to guide my efforts.

• First, I need to remember that comforting others is about them, not me.
• Second, I must draw on the comfort I have received from God.
• Finally, my goal should be to point them to Jesus who alone can fully and truly comfort.

It’s Not about Us

Comforting others needs to be about them, not us. Job’s three friends needed him to be guilty so that they felt secure. It’s so easy to shift to blame, give unhelpful advice, or offer possible explanations to avoid the uncomfortable reality of someone’s deep pain. When we do this, the focus is on our own comfort rather than the one who needs comforting.

Pain cannot be explained away. As Ray Orland writes, “An explanation is a wonderful thing, so far as it goes. But it is an intellectual thing. It cannot touch our core being, where the anguish in fact has taken up its deepest residence. Far better to leave it all with God, as our faith deepens from questioning to waiting. We don’t live by explanations; we live by faith.”

We Offer What We Have Received

We learn to comfort others by first learning to go to God with our deep pain.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Cor. 1:3-4 NIV)

It will be hard to comfort others if we have not first experienced this life-changing comfort from our Father.

Point Them to Jesus

The friendship between David and Jonathan is so beautiful. Jonathan, as the son of the King Saul, was next-in-line for the throne. But David was anointed as the future King. Jonathan had reason to dislike him, but Scripture says that Jonathan loved David (1 Sam. 18:1).

As a warrior in the king’s army, David was so successful that the king became jealous and tried to kill him on multiple occasion, forcing David to run for his life. At one point, a discouraged and suffering David, was hiding from king Saul when Jonathan came to comfort him. First Samuel 23:13 tells us:

And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God. (NIV)

Jonathan didn’t come to ask him if he had stepped outside of God’s will or to remind him he had been in worse situations before and survived. He didn’t give him advice or try to be his hero. He comforted David by helping him to find strength in God.

I need to remember this. When seeking to comfort others, the very best thing I can do is to point them to Jesus and help them find strength in him.

Ann Skalaski and her husband of thirty-three years live in Gainesville, FL. They have moved a dozen times, raising three children along the way. They have added a son-in-law, daughter-in-law, and two precious grandsons to the mix. When she is not packing or unpacking, Ann enjoys serving as a mentor mom for MOPS International, joining Bible studies, meeting friends for coffee, taking long walks, and watching lots of football. Ann is passionate about using lessons from her journey to help other women navigate change in their own lives.

Photograph © Amin Hasani, used with permission