July 28, 2026 // Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s First Reading: Jeremiah 14:17–22
Reflect on the Word //
I walked into my small group on a Wednesday afternoon and burst into tears as soon as someone asked me if I was doing okay. I had just come out of my first doctor appointment in over a year, and I felt so discouraged. In 2024, I suffered two miscarriages and had a surgery to treat endometriosis. I had high hopes that my chances of getting pregnant would improve that year, yet eighteen months later, it felt like nothing had changed.
In our first months of infertility, I remember naively thinking how I couldn’t imagine making it to two whole years without getting pregnant. Six long years later, I have slowly learned that God will in fact carry you every single day of the cross He has allowed you to endure.
Sometimes our seasons of drought feel endless and incurable. It feels like our tears of desperation and disappointment will never dry up. Jeremiah is one prophet in the Bible who became intimately familiar with the long road of trusting God when absolutely nothing made sense.
In today’s First Reading, he pleads with God on behalf of the people of Judah, who were indulging in idolatry. Jeremiah begs God to remember His covenant with them (Jeremiah 14:21). He even wishes he had never been born.
So how did Jeremiah survive his prolonged season in the desert? How do we press on when we feel like we can’t go any longer?
In his book Run with the Horses, Eugene Peterson credits Jeremiah’s persistence to the unfailing persistence of God toward him. Jeremiah expresses this in his own words elsewhere in Scripture, in Lamentations: “The LORD’s acts of mercy are not exhausted, his compassion is not spent; They are renewed each morning—great is your faithfulness!” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
Sister, even when we are in the driest of deserts, God’s faithfulness never dries up. He chooses us, every morning, with unfailing love. He asks us in return to keep choosing His love, one day at a time. Slowly and steadily, His grace will carry us further than we ever thought possible.
Relate to the Lord // Pray with Lamentations 3:22-23. What does this verse stir in your heart?
