Life has been hard lately. In many ways, it feels like the world is falling apart. The heaviness of the broken world has been getting to me. And I know I’m not the only one.
This passage in Lamentations is one of my favorites to turn to when life gets heavy.
19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
Lamentations 3:19-24 ESV (emphasis added)
I think these verses provide a lot of hope on their own, but it is even more powerful when considering the context. The author wrote Lamentations when the world as he knew it was falling apart around him. The book was written when Jerusalem was utterly destroyed. The city was in shambles.
Most of Lamentations is the author crying out to God. Mourning the loss of the city. The pain and despair pour off the page.
Until the middle of chapter 3. In the midst of immense suffering and destruction, the author comes back to his hope in God. This does not magically fix the city. It does not even fully take away the author’s pain as he continues mourning for the rest of the book.
There is no resolution at the end of Lamentations. There is no “happily ever after” moment. And that is one of my favorite things about the book.
Situations in life aren’t neatly resolved in a nice little bow. Life is messy. Life is still messy when you have faith in God. Taking away the mess isn’t the point – it’s learning how to hold onto hope in God through the mess.