Joining The Fraternity

We . . . comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

2 Corinthians 1:4

One day when Earl McQuay was a professor at Columbia International University, he received an emergency call. The news was devastating. His son, Tim, had been in a terrible wreck.

After Tim’s death, Dr. McQuay wrote of the experience in a poignant little book, Beyond Eagles: A Father’s Grief and Hope. In the book, he says, “Only someone who has experienced such a loss, we have found, is able to understand the agony of grief. Once in a while, we meet someone who has experienced a similar heartbreak, and we sense a certain kinship with them. It appears that we have become members of what someone has called ‘the fraternity of the bereaved.’”

We each have our own set of hardships in life, and whenever you face any sorrow, you become a member of a fraternity. Parents of prodigals, for example. Or cancer sufferers. Or those who struggle with addictions. Or those who have buried a child.

There is a purpose in it all, and your hurt isn’t wasted; it can provide balm for someone else’s healing.

God does not waste suffering. . . . If He plows, it is because He purposes a crop.

ISOBEL KUHN