Bosom Buddies

Bosom Buddies

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. 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 1:3-4

When my friend Lisbeth went through a double mastectomy and then chemotherapy, she took to heart this truth that God comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort others. She understood it to mean that what she went through would be wasted if she didn’t use her experience to reach out and help others who suffered what she did. Remembering all the kindness and comfort that helped her—the Bible verses friends wrote on cards, flowers that cheered her hospital room, the small pillow with an inspirational quote, the special hat to wear when her hair fell out—she wanted to give buckets of comfort to others. Since her recovery more than twenty years ago, Lisbeth has individually and personally reached out to more than 250 women with cancer.

She sends cards of encouragement. She keeps blank journals on hand and takes one when she visits someone diagnosed with cancer. She encourages them to write in their personal “Gratefulness Journal” every day, starting with a simple list of prompts: the phone call at just the moment you’re feeling especially down, the card from your son, the presence of a kind nurse. Even on rough days, the women can look in the journals and see how God has worked, and that will help them to pass on God’s comfort to others.

She also started a lunchtime support group called “Bosom Buddies.” In this group, which meets monthly, Lisbeth gathers women who are battling or have survived cancer. They chat, laugh, share what has helped them recover, and most of all, pass on buckets of comfort. How has God comforted you in your troubles? How can you pass that comfort on to others? —CHERI

Father of all comfort, as you have comforted me in my troubles, help me to see how I can comfort others. Open doors for me to give out buckets of comfort.

God does not leave us comfortless, but . . . it is in days and nights of sorrow and trouble that the presence, the sufficiency, and the sympathy of God grow very sure and very wonderful.

—PETER MARSHALL (1902–1949), SCOTTISH AMERICAN PREACHER AND FORMER CHAPLAIN OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE