I’m in South America sitting across the table from a couple who are Pastors in Paraguay. I have known them for many years but something has changed. Besides the dark circles under their eyes and shoulders that seem to hang down, there’s a marked heaviness in their voices.
He tries to make small talk with me, but looks off and totally disengages. She looks at me and says nothing, but something screamed, “Help!!!” “Is everything alright?” I asked her.
“It’s our son…”
As she replied her eyes filled with tears. Hearing what she said, the husband turned and started another conversation with someone else who was in our group.
She went on to tell me about their 14-year-old son who was becoming more and more distant and difficult. “He and his father don’t talk to each other, and when they do they just yell.” Suddenly the husband turned and leaned across the table toward me, “I love my son! I just don’t know what to do!”
I knew exactly what this couple was feeling because I had lived it for over 25 years.
Memories flooded through my mind. Painful dark places and seasons that my wife and I had been through. Frustration, confusion, brokenness, and doubt were very familiar waters to us. Then having God speak to us, standing on His promises, and having our faith built up again and again were survival tactics we also knew well.
More than just words began to pour from my lips to this couple. There was a power attached to what I shared that can only come from a person who’s been in the same place and seen what God can do. The recollections of the pain, breakthrough and healing that have occurred in our family caused them to smile. They we’re getting a second wind of hope.
He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. (2 Corinthians 1:4, NLT)
While I would never want to face again the painful situation that my wife and I went through, when I see how God can use it to stir hope and faith in others, I actually feel honored.
I also feel confidant.
Confidant enough to look across the table into the eyes of crushed hope, and say, “I know it’s heartbreaking. I know it’s painful. But I also know that it’s going to be all right. God showed me.”
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