How Long?

May your compassion quickly come to us, for we are brought very low. // Psalm 79:8

I scribbled hurriedly on the index card. Names, needs, questions, and charges poured forth with only the sound of the pen stroke. My brain—my heart—could no longer contain the suffering and petitions. The dam overflowed through the ink and my eyes. 

Mine was like the cry of the Israelites in today’s Responsorial Psalm (see Psalm 79:1b-2, 3-5, 8, 9). I prayed: Look at all these things Your people are suffering! Look at how abandoned they feel. Look at how very low we have been brought.

The course of just a few months had brought great tragedy and pain in my life and the lives of most people I loved. It seemed that every text message I received heralded new bad news, fresh blood poured out (see Psalm 79:3). Not only was the rain falling, but we were flooded and blown about by the wind (see Matthew 7:25). 

I was crumbling like sand. 

The longer I walk with the Lord, the more I see that my peace is not found in human solutions but in relationship with Him. In knowing Him (see Matthew 7:23). In my suffering, I could wring my hands trying to fix problems beyond my influence or I could open my hands to Him, waiting for Him to “deliver us” (Psalm 79:9).

So I continued to write. Some needs I recorded with sadness, some with anger, some with hopelessness. With every circumstance I entrusted to Him, I laid a brick of the foundation of my heart on the Rock. With every suffering offered to Him, my faith was set on solid ground (see Matthew 7:24). This is not because He gave me immediate answers or understanding; it is because He gave me Himself. 

What are you “scribbling down” today? What are the sufferings you—or people you love—enduring and how are they buffeting the house of your heart? Take just a few moments today to cease attempts to resolve the issues and instead give them to Jesus. He wants to know you, to hear the cries of your heart. Your great comfort is found in knowing Him.