Scripture: Psalm 69:3
I am tired of crying. My throat is hoarse. My eyes are exhausted with waiting for my God.
Thought for the Day: These words communicate the emotions of so many people over the last year. For some, the impact was immediate. For others, it was cumulative, with increasing intensity. And still others find that it comes in waves, unexpectedly and fiercely. The scriptures are so often characterized as monolithic in their faithful optimism. There is nothing further from the truth. If you read more than a few select verses, you come to see and feel the tension found in the full human experience. Though the cause may be shaped by the historic context, the response of people is not restricted to the historic context. And like all of us, our emotional response (or reaction) may not always be calculated or rational. Amidst it all there is faith and despair; there is hope and despondency; there is light and there is darkness. God is found, not when we pull it together and are able to focus on what is often described as the positive side. God is found in the tension and overlap. God is God, and the presence of God is not dependent upon us finding some mythical idealism where sorrow and darkness never appear.
Prayer: Let me put aside any attempt to deny or hide the diverse emotional reverberation within me. O God who knows me and everything within me, I reach out as one who believes you care for me even when life is confusing and contradictory. May the love revealed in Jesus be the gift I rely upon as a journey the complexity of life. Amen.
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