Yet This I Call to Mind

As you start your day, let’s read these words of lament and hope together a few times. Do you sense the movement, the honest expression of such different emotions, each of them needing to be felt and expressed?

I remember my affliction and my wandering,
    the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
    to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

- Lamentations 3:19-26

Affliction, wandering, bitterness, and a downcast soul. What if God doesn’t mind us sharing these honest experiences and emotions? What if God invites us to?

And when we’ve gotten it all out, done all the cursing, the crying, the blaming and bargaining in vain… perhaps we will still find within us a seed of hope. Perhaps we will discover that God has not let go of us - that God’s love and faithfulness are still holding us up.

There is a time for everything. First we mourn, then we dance. And somewhere in the middle, we wait with our small seeds of hope.

How might you pray Lamentations 3 in your own words this morning?

I remember _______ (express your raw emotions)

Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope, that _______

I say to myself, _______

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
    to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

AMEN

P.S. We invite you to join us for livestream worship this Sunday at 10:30am; video and podcast will be made available, too.