Have you ever read a passage of scripture…

and all of a sudden,

you just feel it? 💓

Something sinks in,

something hits your heart,

something stirs in you…

The Word of God is

SO

ALIVE… 📖✨

This morning when I opened to the book of Lamentations, I honestly thought…

“….oh no…”

(Just being honest! 😌)

It’s kind of a “heavy” book compared to the others.

BUT

there is hope. ☀️

In my Bible, the intro to the book of Lamentations reads like this…

“This is a book about pain but with hope in God. The author vividly addresses the extremes of human pain and suffering as a few other authors have done in history. For this reason, Lamentations is an important biblical source expressing the hard questions that arise during our times of pain...”

I specially came to Chapter 3, which, in my bible is titled “The Prophet’s Anguish and Hope“:

“He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.” (v2)

“He has set me in dark places…”(v6)

In the footnotes, it says:

“Just as quickly as the prophet (Jeremiah) was tempted by bitter thoughts, he adopted a better line of thought: instead of brooding over his anguish and sorrow, he would put his hope in the love of the Lord, because His compassions never fail.“

Here it is…just look how everything SHIFTS in the tone of his writings!

“Remember my affliction and roaming,
The wormwood and the gall [bitterness].
²⁰ My soul still remembers
And sinks within me.
²¹ This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.

²² Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
²³ They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

²⁵ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
²⁶ It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.”—Lamentations 3:19-26 NKJV

And so what do we see here?

We see Jeremiah making a shift in his thinking—going from dwelling on his anguish, to focusing on the goodness of his God!

A “goodness” that he KNOWs…through and through.

And so he remembers…

“I called on Your name, O Lord,
From the lowest pit.
⁵⁶ You have heard my voice:
“Do not hide Your ear
From my sighing, from my cry for help.”
⁵⁷ You drew near on the day I called on You,
And said, “Do not fear!”

⁵⁸ O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul;
You have redeemed my life.“—Lamentations 3:55-58

And as I came to verses 55-58, something in me just broke open before the Lord. 💓

I could feel something coming from these words, in two different ways…

I felt the “connection” with the words of a man who was deciding to remember who God is—he called on God’s name in the midst of his anguish and pain.

And most of all, I could feel these living Words of God…

come alive within me

and sink into my heart

…in a way that only He can do. 📖💖✍🏻✨☀️

And in this book of Lamentations

we can SEE

we can connect with

we can begin to grasp

we are reminded…

How to deal with pain and suffering

and with the heavy things of life.

We cling to our HOPE in the Lord. ☀️

And we remember what He has done

and we cling to

that which He has promised to do. 🌈

And we keep walking through it with Him. 🏃🏻‍♀️☀️

“You drew near on the day I called on You,
And said, “Do not fear!”“

Thank You, Father. 💝 Thank You for teaching us—You know that we need these truths as we find ourselves living in a broken world. And thank You for sinking Your Word into the deepest places of our hearts, You know what we need.

-Heather 🌺