What if the remedy doesn’t work?
I heard about a farmer whose chickens were dying. He called the agricultural agent and said, “I had 600 chickens and now I’m down to 300. They’re all dying. What do I do?” The agent said, “You need to give them penicillin.” A few days later he told the agent he was down to 150 chickens. “They are dying quickly. I need some more advice.” The agent said, “Give them some castor oil twice a day. That ought to help.” The farmer called back in a few days and said he was down to 50 chickens. The agent said, “This is what you do: Give them aspirin twice a day.” Two days later he told the agent all the chickens were dead. There was silence on the line. Then the agent said, “That’s a shame. I have a lot more remedies to try.”
We want to keep trying remedies, but some things can’t be fixed. It was children’s day at church, and a small girl got one of those big blue helium balloons. All of a sudden, it popped! The big balloon was nothing but a blob of rubber. Her face turned to gloom and then, as if something struck her, she picked up that glob of blue rubber and again started cheerfully hopping and skipping as she ran to her daddy and said, “Here. Fix it.”
What do you do when you can’t fix it? You have to move from compassion to comfort. I believe there is a difference between compassion and comfort. Comfort is putting compassion into action. A little girl took first aid training. A few years later she burst into the house and said, “Mother, I saw a terrible accident and I used my first aid training.” Mother asked her what she did. She said, “I saw a lot of blood so I sat down and put my head between my knees so I wouldn’t pass out.” Well, that wasn’t very comforting. Compassion leads to comfort. Compassion leads to taking the initiative. Because Beethoven was deaf, he found conversation difficult. When he heard of the death of a friend’s son, he hurried over to the house, overcome with grief. He had no words of comfort to offer, but he saw a piano in the room. For the next half-hour he played the piano, pouring out his emotions in the most eloquent way he could. After playing, he left. The friend later remarked that no one else’s visit had meant so much. Beethoven did what he could.
A little boy was suddenly aware of the puddle between his feet and that the front of his pants was all wet. How could it have happened? Embarrassed, he wanted to die. The guys would never let him forget it; the girls would never speak to him again. “Please, dear God,” he prayed. “I’m in big trouble here. I need help now.” Suddenly a classmate named Susie lost her grip on the goldfish bowl she was carrying. It tipped over, right in the boy’s lap. “Thank you, dear God,” he silently rejoiced. He pretended to be angry with Susie and she then became the center of classroom scorn. He rushed to the office for a pair of dry gym shorts. After school the two were waiting for the bus. Susie was standing off by herself, but he went up to her and whispered, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” and Susie whispered back, “I wet my pants once, too.”
Comfort is not arguing about the facts but acknowledging the feeling. Comfort is being honest enough to say, “I don’t understand it either, but I know God loves you.” Comfort is doing what you can. Comfort is giving part of your heart instead of a piece of your mind. Comfort cares even when there appears to be no cure. So if you see me wet my pants, help me. Throw something wet at me. If there’s nothing wet around, then wet your pants. It won’t be comfortable for you, but it will be comfort to me.