Every Morning

     “If I nurture the newness while I have it, perhaps, I won't lose it — at least not for something less. And if I nurture what I keep, perhaps, I won't miss what I have lost.”  I’m not sure in what context these words were written by Jan Denise, but when I came across them today, a familiar ache travelled through my heart.  It moved through quickly, since it’s been there often and knows the way like the back of its hand.  In the same way it has so many times before, it left me face down at my desk weeping over opportunities seemingly gone forever and longing for changes that never seem to come.  Even though its journey through is swift, it somehow accurately targets every insecurity and every old wound nearly healed and leaves them gaping open and throbbing again.  But God, in His love, brought these precious promises to mind:   “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.  They are new every morning:  great is thy faithfulness.”~Lam. 3:22-23 

     We are not consumed.  Even when so much seems lost – when friends walk away, when family makes choices that break our heart, when a dream you’ve longed for from the pit of your soul is granted to someone else without a glace your way, when we feel consumed and no one seems to notice, His promise is that He notices.  That’s His compassion.  The Veggie Tales have a wonderfully simple definition for compassion.  Bob the Tomato puts it this way.  “It’s when you see someone who needs help, and you wanna help ‘em.”  Compassion goes beyond seeing the need to actually finding a way to help...because you want to.  Our compassion simply may not be enough sometimes, but God’s compassions never fail. 

     The even better thought is that His compassions come with mercies, and they’re “new every morning”.  That’s wonderful news considering “thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”  How amazing to think that He knows and is there with just what I need every morning!  It takes a very faithful God to see to me every morning!  He never cancels a breakfast date, and even when He knows I will, He stops by in the still hours of the morning and gives me what He knows I’ll need for the day.  Isn’t His faithfulness great?

     So, does this magically cure my sadness over the “lost” things of life or remove the fear of losing the wonderful newness of a closer walk with Christ?  Oh, how I wish I could say it does, but today was a stark reminder that I’m still human and hope deferred still makes the heart sick.  The truth is that I’ve probably not had my last cry of the evening, but I know that sometime in the wee hours of night, He’ll tiptoe in to check on me and leave compassion and mercy enough to face tomorrow.

“…weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” ~ Psalm 30:5