Giving a Word of Comfort by Karen Wingate

by Rachael Adams | Apr 22, 2025 | The Love Offering Guest Blog Series

“Anxiety in a person’s heart weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad.” (Proverbs 12:25, NASB)

I have a reputation for colliding with other shoppers. When I do, I quickly explain about my restricted eyesight and make a joke about needing a driver’s license to operate a shopping cart.

I couldn’t use that line the day I went shopping after visiting my mother a week after her stroke. While the stroke’s impact was mild, it changed the woman I knew. Her garbled words tumbled out of a droopy mouth, and she struggled to process thoughts already blurred by dementia. I was strong while I was with her, but by the time I reached the busy discount store, I feared that if I tried to give a reason for my carelessness, I would dissolve into a muddled mess.

If other shoppers only knew where I’ve been, I thought defensively. But God’s Spirit within me responded. What about them? How many other shoppers carried their own unspoken heartache, making them look distracted, careless, or annoyed?

None of us are immune to moments of loneliness and abandonment. We’re not ready to share with anyone the shame and panic that eat at the lining of our stomachs. How we’re about to explode with news we’re too wounded to share. How hearing one word, one short sentence of kindness from a friend or stranger could be enough to give us a lifeline of hope. Someone recognizes and values me. Someone cares enough to pause during a busy day to focus on me.

The connection doesn’t solve the problem or stop the struggle, but it’s like receiving a drink of cool water in a desert wasteland. You don’t need an analysis of why you are thirsty. You just need a drink of water. The same is true with the one whose primary emotional goal is to survive. A gentle greeting, a reassurance, or a hand on the shoulder might be the refreshing milk of human kindness that gives the recipient strength and resolve to take a few more steps forward.

As Christ followers, we represent the God of all comfort. He’s the one in charge of helping the helpless and healing the wounded. He combines my words of concern with a loving gift from another and wise counsel from yet another, and then arranges it all into a love basket from himself. It’s his job to help the afflicted. He is the “Father of compassion” as 2 Corinthians 1:3 says, and you and I are part of a select team through whom God passes his love to the ones who struggle.

If you see a stranger who is struggling, dare to reach out. It doesn’t take much. God can use even a smile or simple “Hi, how are you?” to bring comfort, reassurance, and hope into someone’s darker season of life. God will open the door if the conversation needs to go further. Your words could be the perfect message at the perfect time, known only to the other person and the Holy Spirit of God.

Adapted from With Open Ears: 60 Reflections on the Wonder of Sound from a Woman Born Blind (Kregel, 2025) Used by permission.

Karen Wingate

About the Author:

Karen Wingate is an award-winning, multi-published author and international speaker. Her devotional books share her journey through a life-long sight impairment that invites readers to see God more clearly and take a fresh look at all His lavish gifts to His beloved children. Karen teaches a neighborhood bible study, helps her sister care for their aging mother, and keeps in touch with her two daughters and two grandchildren who live overseas. Karen and her husband Jack enjoy the sunshine of the Southwest desert in Tucson, AZ.