My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to your word. Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my distress, that your promise gives me life. – Psalm 119:25, 49-50 (NRSVUE)
Yearly, as the sunlight fades and the leaves change, so too does my mood. The brightness of life shines for fewer hours; that which was verdant and flourishing becomes brittle and dry. Defaulting to disconnection for a season, I slip into a self-sabotaging script whose main characters are Longing and Despair, and the plot drains me.
And yet—there remains something deep inside my spirit pulling me through. Even the dry leaves crushed to dust become mulch for renewed life. If I can remember God’s promised presence and accompaniment, I can flip the script. The main characters are recast as Comfort and Hope, and the plot begins to give me life.
The author of Psalm 119 knew this ancient and familiar story.
Reading not unlike Kübler-Ross’s “stages of grief,” the psalm cycles through the full range of emotions: happiness, moving to petitions and pleas tinged with self-deprecation (if not self-loathing), glimpsing hope before slipping into jealous and envious indignation, concluding with a return to humbled hope. Given life’s complex cycles, it seems appropriate that the longest psalm tells the story of our emotional seasons.
So it is for our long story: The plot is sketched with some predictability, yet not in final form. Daily, the Holy Ghost writer guides our hand to inscribe hope in each chapter, reminding us that each turn of the page, each flick of the pen is a chance to flip the script.
Prayer
Author of Life: Inscribe your promises on my heart. Help me write a story of hope.
