First things First

I love to gather people’s stories.

I was visiting one of our parishioners the other day. She told me about a time that she was having a kidney stone attack. She called her mother to take her to the emergency room. Her mother hurried over. They raced toward the hospital. Suddenly her mother slowed and said, “I need to get a cup of coffee.” She pulled into Duncan Donuts and ordered a cup of coffee then proceeded to the hospital so her daughter could seek treatment for her kidney stone attack.

She and her daughter were sitting in the room chuckling about the incident so the sting must have gone out of the wound by now and the daughter recovered. I knew two things. Like me, she was a coffee lover. Unlike me, she had never had a kidney stone attack.

If you are going through a painful experience right now take comfort in the fact that you are being equipped to comfort others in a very powerful way. When you have passed through your suffering you will be powerfully equipped to help others who are suffering in a deep way.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
June 19, 2008