“O Lord, my God, my Savior, by day and night I cry to you.”

Psalm 88 is unique. The words depict lament, despair, and hopelessness without ending with the usual hope. This psalm, attributed to Heman (yep, you read that right), strikes at the heart of what most of us feel daily: fear, anger, hopelessness…your mileage may vary. But all of us, at one point or another, feel these emotions. When it seems like hope is lost in the middle of these feelings, they multiply.

I can recall more than a few times in my life that felt impossible to manage. My faith seemed so weak and God so far away that I couldn’t imagine a way out. Have you been there? If so, what did you do? If this is happening currently, what are you doing to combat it? I don’t wonder what Heman did. I don’t wonder how he dealt with his lamentations while having no hope. Because he leaves us with his dealings—he asks holy questions.

“Will your loving kindness be declared in the grave?”

“Will your wonders be known in the dark?”

“Do you work wonders for the dead?”

He may not have answers, and he may not have hope, but notice what he does do: he continues to pray. He prays for answers to earthly and eternal questions. He seeks understanding even in the dark. He asks for God, pleas to Him, hopes for Him, and does not give up. I hope I can be like that one day. I hope my soul will be so saturated with faith that the darkness won’t be bereft of God, that hope is never too far away, and that grace covers me even in the most desperate of times. I hope that for you, too.

This psalm teaches us that even the most faithful of followers find themselves despairing. Desperate. Hopeless. Learning from their words, letting them settle into our minds may just open us up to new avenues of faith, new discoveries of the strength God gives us that we never even noticed.

I hope we notice.

Faithfully,

Fr. Sean+