Comfort

I've had some trouble sitting down to write this past week. My thoughts have been so heavy and dark I wasn't sure I wanted to share them with anyone. But the Spirit is prompting, so I'll be obedient.
The last few weeks I have felt an overwhelming attack on Hope. So many people I know have suffered significant losses. My prayers are full of requests for healing the sick, comfort for the grieving, restoration of marriages, provision for the unemployed, and encouragement for the weary. My sad prayers feel like long expirations...waiting to breath in Hope as prayers are answered. Whether He says... yes, no or wait...I'm holding onto God's character as I pray these things for my friends. "The Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort which we are ourselves are comforted by God" 2Cor.1:3-4. He has given us the ability to comfort others the way He comforts us. It's something I rarely think of...the power I have through the Spirit to help others heal. He promised that "neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" Rom.8:38-39. But can I fully know and appreciate this Comfort during my trials? And can I comfort those with any affliction the way God does? I have felt the power when I have held a friend and prayed with them. But I feel so inadequate in my prayers lately. Maybe I do not "have" because I really don't believe it will turn out how I hope. Maybe I don't really ask for God's will to be done and not mine. Today I am praying for the Spirit's help to be more fervent and believing. Holding on to the promise " the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will" Thank you LORD for reminding me that if You are for us, who can be against us? That " He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all- how will he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Rom. 8:31-32. To the praise of His glorious grace!