I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord. Psalms 27:13-14 NASB1995

 

Has there been a time in your life when you really wished you wouldn’t wake up the next morning?

 

Life is hard. And it’s harder for some people. Ellen tragically lost her 3 ½ year old son in an explosion and later, also lost a daughter. Most of her life, she’d fought a painful battle with mental illness. Once, when her daughter in law asked her how she survived such struggle and loss she replied, “‘I didn’t mean to… I just kept waking up.'” Ellen’s daughter writes, “Sometimes you wake up when you don’t even want to. But maybe God keeps waking you up until one day, many days later, you grow a little gladder that you did.”[1]

 

The Bible portrays morning as a special time of the day, reminding us that God’s faithful love is as sure this morning as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow. It says, “The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

 

Is life hard for you right now? Jesus didn’t pretend about life on this earth. He said, “You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy” (John 16:20). Every day of your life that you wake up, God says to you, “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you (Is. 66:13). Even though our health may fail and our spirits grow weak, God remains our strength; He is ours forever! (Psalm 73:26). He’ll be your strength today.

 

[1] Moore, Beth. All My Knotted-up Life: A Memoir. Tyndale Momentum, a Tyndale Nonfiction Imprint, 2023, p. 132.