Comfort Through the Storm

I had the pleasure of growing up in the Ozarks.  We moved there from California when I was 7 to a farm on a mountaintop.  I remember the first spring we were there.  We could hear thunder.  Daddy took me outside and from our mountain view we could see the lightning striking down in the valley.  I was trembling inside, scared and insecure.  Then I felt the comforting grasp of my Daddy.  He reached his arm around me and held me tight.  In the black darkness, even when I could see the storm I was calm. I was calm because my Daddy was comforting me. 

(My Daddy and Me)

Tonight at church one of the youth leaders said, “It’s a good think Caroline won’t remember the fire. She’s too young.  How could she even comprehending what went on?” 

That got me thinking.   A lot gets me thinking these days.  I started thinking about everything we have been through since the fire.  Then I remembered what I read in my quiet time today.

I Corinthians 1:

The God of All Comfort

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

I was going to read several chapters in I Corinthians today, but I was mesmerized by this paragraph.  I read it over and over again.  The Lord uses situations in our life to help others get through similar things later.  Christ suffered so much for us, yet our comfort from him overflows.  This fire has been the hardest thing I’ve had to grieve in my life.  There may come a time where I need even more comfort than I’ve needed during this tragedy.  It is through Christ, my Abba Father, where my hope is found.  He shared in our sufferings, and he shares in our comfort.

Caroline may be young, but she gets it.  There is not a big difference between our home and our church.  We talk about God a lot.  We live out faith daily in our home.  She will tell you any day that Jesus didn’t stay dead on the cross, he is alive.  She draws crosses a lot these days, actually.   She loves to pray.  She loves to worship. 

As I have written previously, Caroline has been very uneasy and scared since the fire.  She is doing so much better these days.  Sometimes she still wakes up in the middle of the night scared.  Tony goes in there and hugs her and she goes back to sleep.  A few weeks after the fire she said, “Mommy, I wish Jesus was small and cuddly so I could sleep with him every night.  Then, I wouldn’t scared anymore”. 

Caroline knows what’s going on, as much as a 3 year old can.  The Lord knew what he was talking about when he told us to have faith like a child.  She comprehends that The Lord comforts her.  Sometimes she just needs her physical daddy to hold her.  She may help another little girl someday soon; someone who is scared or needs some kind of comfort.  It will be an opportunity for her to share how her Lord comforts her.

Part of me hopes she forgets this whole ordeal.

Part of me hopes that she remembers it all, and like my Daddy comforted me in that thunderstorm when I was a little girl, she will remember how her Abba, Daddy, Savior, Lord comforted her.