Hope in the Hurt

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.—Lamentations 3:21–22

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear,” wrote author and theologian C. S. Lewis about his wife Joy’s death. Lewis initially published A Grief Observed under a pseudonym because the memoir contained such personal and honest observations about pain, doubt, and sorrow. I wonder if Lewis took his cue from the prophet Jeremiah. In the Old Testament book of Lamentations, Jeremiah’s five laments for his beloved city of Jerusalem haunt and comfort those who read them. His words are painfully (some might even say brutally) honest. Yet, running through them, like a shining vein of precious metal, is a promise of hope. It is my prayer that you will experience this hope.

Your devotional author,
John Koessler