When the well-known preacher Peter Marshall had his second heart attack, he said softly to his wife Catherine as he was being carried out of the house on a stretcher, “See you in the morning, darling.” That dark night ended in the morning of eternal life, for Peter Marshall died at the hospital. His wife treasured those words in the days of grief which followed.
Jeremiah writes about the Lord’s compassions being new every morning. Precious words of comfort in the middle of the gloomiest book in the Bible – Lamentations. Jeremiah faces continual ridicule and persecution. He is imprisoned, later beaten and thrown in a well. He agonizes, doubts himself, and turns bitter. The root of his bitterness is self-pity. A dark night of the soul.
We often walk in darkness. Externally, we experience illness, family problems, problems on the job. The more we try to be faithful, the more the problems mount. We feel rejected and persecuted. No one seems to understand. At root we are engaging in self-pity. A dark night of the soul.
Jesus Christ understands our dark night of the soul, for He experienced it in Gethsemane and at Calvary, where He cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). He waited on the Father and won the victory over the powers of darkness. On Easter morning He rose triumphantly from the grave. With Jeremiah we who have experienced God’s love can say the words of our text and add, as did Jeremiah, “It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:26). Whether awaiting a new day of God’s mercy or the eternal morning of heaven, we can say with Peter Marshall, “See you in the morning, darling.”
PRAYER: Lord, help us wait for Your morning mercy. Amen.
(Devotions from “My Daily Devotion” by Dr. Stephen J. Carter, copyright 1988 CPH. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be printed, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of Concordia Publishing House. Permission is granted for one-time emailing of this link to a friend. For ordering information, please contact CPH at 800-325-3040 or visit www.cph.org.)