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Oct 29, 2025 06:00am

In the Hospital Room, I Met the God of All Comfort

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Rise and fall. Up and down. I watched his chest move with force and exhaled quickly when the breath came.

I was in the hospital room with my dad. I was curled up on the cot they had brought in for me to sleep on. We had been there for about ten days, and it was far from comfortable. He had reached a point where he was no longer communicating with us. He was nearing the end of his life, and we knew it was just a matter of time.

I noticed odd movements with his arms. I kept covering them back up, but he kept pulling them out of the covers and raising them in the air. I asked one of the hospice nurses about it, and she mentioned that it’s just one of the things that can happen during this time and nothing to be afraid of. This wasn’t the first time I had asked questions about death.

Why did this or that happen? What caused it? What was happening on the inside? What would come next? What else could we expect?

One day, she entered the room with a little blue book. It was nothing fancy, just a little book with a ship drawn on the front and the title Gone From My Sight written across the top.

“Maybe you’ll find some answers in here.”

I opened it and began reading. So much of what I was reading was exactly what was happening with my dad. Just knowing that others had gone through this and could give reasoning as to why these things were happening eased my mind and my heart.

When she returned later that day, we talked some more, and she said, “Do you find comfort in that?”

She wasn’t asking about the bed or how comfortable I was; she was asking about the book—did it help?

We talked about others’ experiences and similar situations, and she shared her story of why she chose to be a hospice nurse. She too had an experience with a loved one going through this process, and she wanted to help comfort others during that time.

2 Corinthians 1:3–7

“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. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.”

Comfort.

Paul wasn’t referring to our physical comfort of the easiness of life or being free from pain. He wasn’t offering an end to suffering. He spoke of consolation—offering care and love to someone during a time of suffering.

Just as a father holds his crying daughter to offer words of wisdom and comfort when she suffers heartbreak, our Heavenly Father does the same. It doesn’t take the suffering away. The pain is there. But in the midst, there’s love, hope, and healing.

One day, that daughter will take that experience of comfort and be able to share it with someone else.

This is what Paul wanted the believers in Corinth to understand. They would face trials and suffering because of their faith in Jesus. They lived in a city surrounded by immorality. To take a stand for their faith would mean they would face great challenges. But Paul and other fellow believers who had faced similar situations could offer comfort to them during those times.

They had been there, and one day these Corinthians would be able to comfort others in the same way.

What has God brought you through? Has there been a time when you were strengthened by the Lord to get through an overwhelming circumstance?

How can you use that to comfort someone else?

That little blue book she shared with me that day was a big comfort. But it wasn’t the only book bringing me hope. On the bed beside me was my Bible. There has been no other time in my life when I spent more time in the Word than during those ten days in that hospital room. His Word brought the true comfort I needed. I would read to my dad, tell him incredible things I was learning, how God was helping me to see Him more clearly, and I felt that relationship growing stronger passage by passage.

In Him there is comfort. Do you know Him? Reach out to the Lord today. Hear His voice by opening His Word. And then share it with someone who needs to know Him.

Do you want to learn more about a relationship with Jesus and how to have comfort in the midst of suffering? Go to follow.lifeword.org to learn more.