“I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss, yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: the faithful love of the Lord never ends!…His mercies begin afresh each morning…”
When I have been washed under by loss and each step forward took gritting my teeth through ragged, broken breaths, fighting back the ocean of pain always rushing to my eyes at the slightest suggestion, I have found this verse a life-line.
It steadily acknowledged that there are times that are legitimately awful. It did not say “count your blesssings.” It said “this is really bad.” It allowed me to hate how life was. And yet it held out this:
Dare to hope, because He offers fresh mercy this morning.
It would be hopeless, except you have Him.
So dare to hope, even in this.
Words to live by, because my hope rests on His solid love. Words to take up in dark hours, overwhelming moments, heartbreak and loss. Words to rally toward when I look at the situation and can’t come up with a way to make it work out, when I’m at a loss and see no good outcomes.
And words to take hold of when mornings don’t feel like fresh starts.
This morning, it was not a huge loss or a major transition, but a thousand small weights that I carried when I met this verse again, and still He spoke through it. Because it’s easy to feel buried the moment I open my eyes to the alarm clock, and even with daily things, hope takes daring. Even in the daily routines, my insecure soul longs for new reassurance.
Lord-
Teach me. Show me how to use this day. Show me who you are in it.
Thank you that struggle leads to life and that my growth is a process you tend to with such care. Thank you that your mercies are fresh, for the deep hurts of life and also for the daily burdens.
I’m buried under too many urgent things today. I find myself developing “alarm fatigue” and shutting off my brain, my desire, to all of it, because I don’t know how to choose which thing is next, which thing most deserves my attention. Or if I know…I falter at how to do that thing, because it is big and important, difficult and time-consuming. And whatever I choose, I still feel the sting of what I’ve neglected. There is more I need to get to than I have time for, and urgent things lose their urgency when I lose hope that I can ever get to all the needs before me.
Oh Lord, what is it like to have no limits?
What was it like to step into a body that suddenly had them?
Only you know the balance.
Lift the pressure and give me your settled peace in its place. Show me your radiant joy for this moment, here, now, beneath all that remains unfinished.
Show me how to enjoy that even I am unfinished. For you are doing the work. You are not in a rush, and I don’t need to be either. It is enough to lay the needs before you and do this next thing well. It is enough to see I am too small to get to everything and to breathe easy because it is not my job to get to everything after all.
Lift my eyes from the worry that steals away my energy and teach me, Lord, to dare to hope. In the big and the small. In loss and in busyness. In emptiness and in overwhelm.
You offer fresh mercy for this day, too. Unbury me that I may taste it.
dig deep | draw close 