Surrounded by Blessings

Scripture

Lamentations 3: 19-24

¹⁹ The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
    is wormwood and gall!
²⁰ My soul continually thinks of it
    and is bowed down within me.
²¹ But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:

²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
    his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

Devotion

I'll admit that I'm struggling this week.  Each morning, my fellow church leaders and I are confronted by the deep needs of our congregation and larger community.  We pour all the time and resources we can into providing help, but when I go home at the end of the day, I feel heartsick about all the work that has been left undone.  My mind keeps turning over the list of people we can't help the way we would like to....the situations we can't fix....the carefully laid plans that are going awry.   There are moments when I lie in bed and feel surrounded by wormwood and gall.  

In moments such as these,  I am thankful for the Book of Lamentations.  These poems don't just give voice to the grief that I cannot always find the words to express.  They also help me focus on the fact that signs of God's steadfast love can be found even in times of great despair.   As Lamentations 3: 22-23 explains, this love is made manifest in the new mercies God pours into our lives each and every day.  The more we focus on those daily blessings as signs of God's faithfulness and love, the more hope we find.  This hope helps us do what we can and trust in God's promise to bring us through this time of sorrow.

How, though, do we go about focusing on God's daily mercies when it seems like everything is going wrong?  Just today I heard Leon Gatewood of HOLLA! (Helping Our Loved ones Learn and Achieve) share some examples of  tangible yet easily overlooked ways that people and businesses in our area contribute to our community's various needs.   Leon summed up his thoughts by saying that there are often so many blessings in our presence that we don't  need to go out and look for new ones.  Sometimes, we need to stop and appreciate the blessings that are all around us.

Leon's words emphasize the importance of mindfulness.  When all we can see is the world's need and despair lies heavy upon us, then it is time for us to pause  and take a good look around us. When we  truly reflect on things, we will see that God is bestowing all kinds of blessings in our community.  God works out those blessings through both the giving of large corporations and the efforts of everyday folk like you and me.  Sometimes, they come in the form of grant money or volunteers to help with a project.  Other times, they are a prayer over the phone or the name of someone else who may be able to help when we have reached the limits of what we can do.    When all these blessings are added up, they demonstrate God's steadfast love for the world.  That love gives us hope for a better future.

I have decided to spend the rest of my week doing my best to live into the spirit of Leon's words.  Whenever despair for what I can't do threatens to swamp my soul, I am going to pause and look for the blessings that surround me.  I have enough food to feed myself and share a meal with someone who is hungry.  I have siblings in Christ who are doing great work on behalf of the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, and the oppressed.  And I know we all have a place in God's coming Kin-dom on Earth.  None of us can fix all the world's problems on our own, but God's mercy and love are being made manifest in what we can do.  If we can take time to appreciate those blessings, then we will find the hope we need to keep following God's ways.  Slowly but surely, the world will turn for the better.  And the day will come when our sorrow turns to joy.

Prayer

Steadfast and Merciful God, when despair for the world fills our souls, help us seek signs of the blessings that surround us.  May the hope we find in you ever remind us that in sunshine and rain, even sorrow and pain, you remain our comfort and our guide.  We long for the day when your grace sets the world free from sin and sorrow so that we may stay forever by your side.  Amen.