A New Day

The downstairs floors have needed a good cleaning for a long time now. Earlier this week I finally completed that nagging job at mid-night, the time when yesterday becomes a new day. Long after everyone had gone to bed and when the night was quiet and still, I stood there thinking of the next morning when life and responsibility and situations would assault me again, and I remembered God's promise.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

    his mercies never come to an end;

 they are new every morning;

    great is your faithfulness.

 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

    “therefore I will hope in him.”

Mercies are new everyday. In the morning I had a fresh beginning-- like a fresh start to go with my clean floors. 

But don't be deluded, because it's not like everything is all clean and shiny in my life (or in my house). In fact, everything is certainly not clean and shiny in the book of Lamentations from where the above verses are found. This wouldn't be a promise of hope and encouragement unless there was a whole pile of suffering and hardship and desperate ugly to go along with it. Just read Lamentations and be amazed at the horrible situation. But if there was hope in that situation, there is hope in mine too.

A few more excerpts from Lamentations 3:

It is good that one should wait quietly

    for the salvation of the Lord.

It is good for a man that he bear

    the yoke in his youth.  

Let him sit alone in silence

    when it is laid on him;

 let him put his mouth in the dust—

    there may yet be hope;

 let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,

    and let him be filled with insults.

I'm not sure why God has chosen things to be as they are. Verse 38 says, "Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth?"

I don't know, but here is this trial in my life and it brings me sadness and fear daily. It is here. Could it be that God is laying it on me "in my youth" so that I can relate, help, and encourage someone else later on in my life? I don't know. I have no doubt that God is using it to humble me, to change me, and to draw me closer to Him. I don't know if the situation will change, but for the glory of God and for my love of another, I sure pray for a miracle. I wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. God is in the business of doing miracles, so to Him I plead.

For the Lord will not

    cast off forever,

 but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion

    according to the abundance of his steadfast love...

I called on your name, O Lord,

    from the depths of the pit;

you heard my plea, ‘Do not close

    your ear to my cry for help!’

You came near when I called on you;

    you said, ‘Do not fear!’

 “You have taken up my cause, O Lord;

    you have redeemed my life.

God has a purpose in all this.

There is hope for us in the ugly; the beauty of hope shines in darkness and pain.

~Katherine