Our church is located on a busy road. Hundreds of cars pass by each day—workers heading for or returning home from their jobs, students on their way to classes, people driving to the supermarket.

About a block from the church is a major traffic light, and often lines of cars sit waiting for it to turn green. With no commercial signs in the area, our illuminated church sign gets plenty of attention, and it's my job to change the wording on both sides of the sign as often as the spirit moves me.

Usually it's fun trying to think of comforting, healing messages. But one morning recently, with the death toll caused by the tsunami in South Asia climbing each hour, I woke feeling anything but peaceful—and not the least inspired to remove the now-old Christmas message.

I hoped I'd find my peace after some early-morning Bible study. But that didn't happen. Instead I felt restless—a need to do something to help a world crying out for comfort. But what? I live thousands of miles from the affected areas. It even felt as though my prayers were failing.

Then it occourred to me that maybe our sign would be a worthy attempt to reach out with words of hope to our community, although it was still with a heavy heart that I went to our church to change the wording. What would I replace the Christmas message with? "Happy New Year!" sounded empty, almost heartless.

Suddenly I recalled a line from the book of Psalms, which I had read earlier that morning: "The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion" (145:8). I thought: "There's tons of evidence of compassion going on in all parts of the world as aid is rushed to the countries needing help. Those inspiring words might be just the right thing." Yet I still struggled with an unusual resistance to using them, and my inner turmoil continued. I reasoned along these lines: Much of the time, horrific events are blamed on people—terrorists, criminals, world leaders, and so on. In this case, as survivors stand on beaches, looking out across the ocean, some of them might well be consoling themselves with the thought that this worldwide catastrophe is simply what many people call an act God over which they had absolutely no control. Or that the incalculable loss and sadness were forms of divine punishment for their sins.

I was certainly not comfortable with the idea that there might be accusing fingers pointed toward God, whom I view as a consistently loving Father-Mother. I was momentarily persuaded to ask myself, "Should I really put those words on our sign, declaring a compassionate God?" I wanted to forget the idea, and instead to post something not nearly as bold. But I found I just couldn't let it go, and cautiously proceeded to change the lettering on the sign.

To my amazement, as soon as I'd placed those words from Psalms on the board, a deep peace washed over me. I felt released, relieved. And I became convinced that this was a message God's children could read and believe about Him.

I further reasoned that a God who is almost universally understood to be Love—as well as Mind, the supreme intelligence—would not create such an unthinkable disaster and then drag other members of His grieving children from remote parts of the world to go pick up the pieces. Such a situation is an unthinkable to God as darkness would be to the sun.

If we were to blame God and be angry with Him for tornadoes, tidal waves, lightning, and so on, then those intense thoughts would put a wall between us and the very source of the peace we are hungering for. We can't blame God and reach out to Him for comfort at the same time. To find my peace, I found I needed to be willing to take a stand without reservation with Him—with the God of compassion and healing.

The reward for taking this stand was a firm assurance that this very same love was embracing everyone on the entire planet and would be identified by all who turned to Him without fear. I realized that my resistance to put "The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion" on our sign was perhaps due to the fact that I hadn't completely stopped blaming God for some of the tidal waves of misfortune in my own life.

When unexpected tragedies strike areas of the world that feel remote from us, it may not seem we are able to do much to help. But we will always be doing the world an immense favor by being willing to yield to God's utter goodness, to His unwavering love and care for His entire creation. This is a form of prayer that promotes comfort and healing.