You Can Take Comfort-So Much Need for Comfort!

ARE you looking for comfort? Are you yearning for a ray of consolation to break through the dark clouds of despair? Are you craving a crumb of solace to sweeten life marred by bitter suffering and unsavory experiences? 

At one time or another, we all sorely need comfort and encouragement. This is because there are so many things in life that bring sadness.  We all need to be sheltered, warmed, embraced.  Some of us have grown old and are not happy about that.  Others are deeply disappointed  that life has not turned out as was hoped.    Still others have been shaken by a report that has come back from a pathology lab.

Moreover, few would contest that events in our time have created a vast need fro comfort and hope.  During the past century alone, more than a hundred million people have died in war.  Almost all of them left behind a grieving family-mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, widows and orphans-in desperate  need of solace. Today, over a billion people live in extreme poverty. Half the world's population lace regular access to medical treatment and essential drugs.  On the streets of polluted mega-cities wander millions of abandoned children, many of whom use drugs and practice prostitution.  Millions of refugees languish in horrible camps. 

However, numbers-as compelling as they may be-do not bespeaking the individual pain and affliction  that some are experiencing in their personal life. Consider, for instance, Svetlana, a young woman from the Balkans who was born into abject poverty.  "In order to get money," she says, "I was sent out by my parents to beg or steal. Family life deteriorated to the point that I became a victim of incest. I found work as a waitress, and my mother who received the money I was earning, said that if I ever lost my job, she would kill  herself. All of this led me to a life of prostitution.  I was only 13 years old. In time, I became pregnant and had an abortion. At 15 years of age, i looked like a 30-year old."

Next time: Continue with So Much Need for Comfort!

From the Watchtower magazine, 2000