Hard Weeks and Hopeful Mornings

This was a tough week. Two big things I’d been prayerfully looking forward to were confirmed to not be on the same, overly hormonal, day. Suffice to say, that day pretty well stunk.

I’d had a rough few days emotionally already. I was in one of those can’t-control-your-emotions-or-feel-anywhere-close-to-Jesus funks. And one thing I know is that without a lot of Jesus and Holy Spirit filling me each day, I’m a pretty horrible person. I’d been short-tempered and full of bad attitude. Let’s just say I was not deserving of much love or grace.

So my breakdown(s) on that fateful bad news day were crowning achievements in my week of bad days. They weren’t pretty. They were nasty, snotty, sobbing, lash-out-at-my-husband breakdowns.

I’m telling you all of this to put what I read this morning into context. That bad day broke my heart a little. But this morning I awoke to the little icon on my phone reminding me to read my daily verse. It read, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope…”. That verse felt like life-giving water to my tired and thirsty soul. It felt like healing salve on my wounded heart. The peace and hope that washed over me from those fourteen words was palpable. So, I decided to get out of bed and go downstairs for a little more of that Word that gives me hope.

Settling in with my coffee, I opened my Bible to the Psalm those words came from, Psalm 130.
One thing you should know is that in between reading those words and settling in downstairs, I’d been thinking about how horrible I’d been this week, acting on my own. And in that mindset, somewhere between conviction and hope, I read these words.

“If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”

Now THAT is what I call hope! None of us are void of iniquities. None of us could stand under that standard. But Christ. But Christ sacrificed his everything, the Father gave up his everything, for us, that we could know that forgiveness. That we could fear the Lord in love and gratitude. In love? Yes!

“O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.”

We can hope because His love is unwavering and his redemption is more than enough. When I feel like I’m past my breaking point and so full of nasty humanity that I’m not even worthy of rescue He comes in with a powerful love to remind me that I have hope, that I have a passionately loving savior whose power and desire to redeem and rescue is so beyond my undoing.

My prayer is that you find hope in that love today. That you would wait for Him and His rescuing.

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”