Dancing and Mourning

Day 176: Lamentations 4-5

Lamentations is a book for mourners. It is a book for people who have lost hope, who have experienced pain and loss, and who have become separated from God. Lamentations 5:15 says, "Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning." This book is about people who have lost hope and who are now crying out to God for help.

In recent years, much more than ever before, I have felt that much of the joy and hope I had as a young person has turned to mourning for one reason or another. It is no secret that I have been depressed over the last year of my life. I also suffered from postpartum depression after my son Peyton was born almost twenty years ago. Whereas I had experienced so much joy and happiness before, now I felt sad, lonely, and alone. I mourned. I felt the loss. I suffered. Lost hopes and dreams. Unnecessary conflict. Tired resignation. Worry. Anxiety. Sadness. Loneliness.

And although my dancing turned to mourning, God still came in. And he turned my mourning, my loneliness, my depression back into dancing, joy, happiness. God came in, and he restored my hope.

I am officially off depression medicine, and it feels good. I know, though, that dancing between mourning and joy is a part of life, but God is in control and he continues to rule my life.

Steadfast Love of the Lord

Day 175: Lamentations 1-3

The book of Lamentations is pretty grim, but hope still remains. I leave you today with this thought from Lamentations 3:18-26.

So I say, "My splendor is gone
       and all that I had hoped from the LORD."
    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.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; it is new every morning. 

Hope and a Future

Day 169: Jeremiah 29-32

Jeremiah 29:10-14: This is what the Lord says: "You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you," says the Lord. "I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land."

I include this passage in its entirety so that you can better understand the context out of which it is written. Jeremiah tells the people that they will be exiled to Babylon for 70 years. After that time, God will come and fulfill all the promises he has made to them. He knows the plans he has for Israel, and they are good plans, hopeful plans.

That passage is very meaningful to me. It shows me more about God's character and how he deals with his people. It shows he's a good God, a loving God, a God who wants to bring hope instead of pain and suffering. This is a God I want to know. This is a God I want to be one with. This is a God that makes me enthusiastic about my life in Christ. Like Israel, God knows the plans he has for us, and these plans are for GOOD. Good plans. A hopeful future.

This makes me smile.

Hope for a Future Christ

Day 148: Isaiah 5-8

Isaiah, the prophet, communicates here how God's anger burns against his people, the Israelites, for all the sins they have committed. They leave and deny God again and again, and his hand remains upraised.

Yet still, Isaiah prophesies about what he sees. Isaiah 6:1-7 contains beautiful imagery and prophesies about the redemption that Jesus Christ will bring:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

       "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
       the whole earth is full of his glory."

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

What beautiful hope is found here.

Hope in Christ, Value in God

Day 144: Ecclesiastes 9-12

After finishing Ecclesiastes today, I'm not quite sure whether or not Solomon reconciles the meaning of life--how he answers the question. At one point, he does say that we cannot understand the work of God who made everything (11:5), from which I infer that we don't understand God's ways and so there really is no answer to Solomon's question to why life is meaningless.

But maybe the reality is that even though our lives may seem meaningless at times, in Christ, we can have hope. We can have a new understanding of the meaningless of our lives. Christ gives us a context of interpreting hard times; he transforms the meaningless, the vanity, into hope. So even though there may not be an answer in Ecclesiastes, we have the advantage of looking at the book through the lens of Christ. Christ brought redemption; he brought hope. He still brings hope today.

It does seem that Solomon reconciled the meaningless of life in that he understands the importance of seeking God. At the end of the book, he claims in Ecclesiastes 12:13: "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."

In the midst of emotions...praise the Lord

Day 131: Psalm 135-138

Lately I've been feeling like everything is meaningless. No, I haven't gotten to this passage in scripture yet, but I sure have felt this way about a lot of things. In spite of feeling this way, though, I'm still reminded by these writers of psalms of the importance of praising the Lord. Over and over again, these people shout, "Praise the Lord!" And that's what I'm going to do. I will praise the Lord, regardless of how I'm feeling at this moment.

I will praise the Lord for the Lord is good.

I will praise the Lord because of all that he has done for me.

Even though I'm feeling this way right now, I will still praise the Lord. I will give thanks to him for all the reasons listed in Psalm 136 (a great passage!). For in my praise and my thanksgiving, I can see that there is one thing that isn't meaningless, and that one thing--God--can bring me hope. Why? Because his faithful love endures forever.

Thoughts on Psalms

Day 111: Psalm 31 to 35

Psalm 32 is an interesting psalm in the sense that it deals with the Lord forgiving sins. If I'm remembering correctly, so far in my reading of the Old Testament, I don't remember reading anything so far about God and forgiveness. However, this psalm deals specifically with the idea of confession and forgiveness. The writer confessing his sins to the Lord, and the Lord forgiving them.
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Reading the psalms teaches me about the ways of the Lord and the relationship he establishes with his people. I kind of wish the psalms were intermittent throughout the Bible so that we could have narrative and poetry intermixed.
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Psalm 34:18: "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." This scripture suggests that God is near those who suffer. He is close to the hurting, offering them comfort and hope.

Finding Hope

Day 51: Ruth 2-4

Poor Naomi. I really feel sorry for her. She lost her husband, two sons and one daughter-in-law all in a very short period of time. Yes, she still has Ruth (for whom she was thankful), but this doesn't diminish the pain of losing a husband and the two children she had borne. That loss a lot to fathom. Losing a spouse is enough in itself, but to also lose two children. Wow. Children aren't supposed to go before parents. That's why I feel sorry for Naomi.

I've always thought Naomi was just a bitter old woman. But as I'm older now and in a different position than before when I only looked at the story through Ruth's perspective, I can understand Naomi a lot better. And I don't think she's a bitter old woman; rather, I think she's trying to cope with the situation that has been thrown at her. A situation that causes her to doubt and question God. To even lose her faith in Him.

But here comes Ruth, and Ruth brings Naomi the hope that she had lost. Not only does Ruth commit to love her and go with her wherever she will go, therefore giving her love (and a daughter), Ruth also offers Naomi hope through an extended family--in a son (Boaz), and grandchildren. More important than that, though, is that Ruth restores Naomi's hope in God. Naomi feels that God has returned to her when Ruth and Boaz marry. The loss she feels lessens somewhat and she comes to know that God cares for her and that he is watching over her.

We live in a painful time--a time of addictions, car accidents, cancer, mental illness, poverty, hunger, hatred, children dead at too young of ages, stillbirths, and on and on and on. We live in a painful time. Life is not easy--it never has been--and we don't have the answers for all of life's mysteries.

But God does. We can take a lesson from Naomi by grieving and questioning where God is in the midst of all our pain. But we can also find hope. Hope in Jesus' death on the cross. Hope in our families and friends. Hope in nature. Hope in humanity. Hope in kindness, faith, and love. There is hope. Now may not be the time where we are ready to look for it, but it is there waiting for us when we are ready to look. The first place we can look to find it is to the cross. Jesus can give us hope again. He already has, actually; he's just waiting for us to come get it.