I CRIED MYSELF TO SLEEP LAST NIGHT
I cried myself to sleep last night. I could hear the sound of my heavy sobs, reminding me of the kind of sobs I cried when my baby brother died over 20 years ago. My brother wasn’t really a baby then, but to my heart he would always be my baby brother as I would always be his older sister, and when he passed away I heaved with grief. Last night, I heaved with grief again, although it wasn’t due to literal death, but rather death that came in the form of an argument between two people. Someone I love and me.
Arguments almost always feel like a sniper attack. You aren’t looking for hurt, anger, or loss. Usually, it’s the furthest thing from your mind when a word or two suddenly starts a cascade of shocking proportion, leaving a wake of destruction. Like a child’s tall tower of blocks, it violently comes crashing down, block by block, word by word. And like the distraught and surprised child, you stand staring at the mess in bewilderment and wonder just exactly how this disaster happened.
Lying on my bed in the darkness, I prayed for God to console, intervene, and heal, but as my eyes finally shut, swollen and numb, I didn’t experience any of that. Rather I only felt grateful the day was over, and the madness, for now, had ceased.
Then, this morning, I was awakened in the darkness. The sun still hadn’t arrived to signal a new day, but I was awakened, nonetheless.
As I lie in the stillness I immediately heard a winsome whisper, “His mercies are new every morning.” As the words I recognized from scripture resounded, I heard it yet again in a different way. A gentle voice speaking directly to my heart.
My mercies are new every morning.
I let the words fall into the cracks of remorse and fear lingering in my heart. It occurred to me that this was God’s word in the book of Lamentations. Lamentations. A word that means the passionate expression of grief and sorrow. Weeping. Yet, now mercy was being extended, birthed in lamentations.
Eventually I looked up the verse.
“"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23, ESV, emphasis mine.)
Steadfast love that never ceases. Mercy, fresh every morning. Faithfulness in abundance. What would happen if I embraced these whispers of love as my path to healing and reconciliation? Could I emulate the goodness of God, and demonstrate to the one I love and hurt last night, steadfast love, mercy created fresh this morning, and faithfulness without measure? And would there be any possibility that they would find it in their heart to return the favor?
The remedy, whispered to my heart as my eyes opened to the day, was Him. He whispered to me the answers I was seeking in the dawn of morning solitude. Following His way was my necessary path to peace and reconciliation because giving up on the one I love is not an option.
And at the end of the day, when this has come full circle, perhaps, my love will be tested and proven as genuine when it’s gone through this fire of pain and come out on the other side with the marks of steadfast love, mercy anew, and great faithfulness. When I take the steps to look like Him.
