When I awoke this morning I kept hoping it would all be a bad dream. And I would imagine you did too. Remembering the blissful disregard for reality during my four years away at college, I longed for the students at Virginia Tech to be able to recapture what for them is forever lost.
I am amazed now as I look back at the devotional I read yesterday morning. Little did I know that as I was reading those words, a horrific event was unfolding on a campus in the college town of Blacksburg. Nothing I can share with you would be as poignant for the moment as those words. So I leave them with you as we try to make sense of an insane situation, as we mourn, as we remember, and as we look to the days ahead.
From Living Light by Tyndale Publishers. Copyright 1972.
April 16
Morning
I spoke too hastily when I said, “The Lord has deserted me,” for you listened to my pleas and answered me.
Save me, O God. The floods have risen. Deeper and deeper I sink in the mire; the waters rise around me. I have wept until I am exhausted; my throat is dry and hoarse; my eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for my God to act.
Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be favorable? Is his lovingkindness gone forever? Has his promise failed? Has he forgotten to be kind to one so underserving?
Listen to my peading, Lord! Be merciful and send the help I need. Oh, do not hide yourself when I am trying to find you. Do not angrily reject your servant. You have been my help in all my trials before; don’t leave me now. Don’t forsake me, O God of my salvation. I am expecting the Lord to rescue me again, so that once again I will see his goodness to me here in the land of the living.
O Lord by God, I pleaded with you, and you gave me my health again. You brought me back from the brink of the grave, from death itself, and here I am alive. Oh, sing to him you saints of his; give thanks to his holy name. His anger lasts a moment; his favor lasts for life! Weeping may go on all night, but in the morning there is joy.
Ps. 31:22. Ps 69:1-3. Ps. 77:7-9. Ps 27:7, 9, 13. Ps. 30:2-5.
Those of us that are here, in the Land of the Living, should consider how to make the most of the time we have been given. I pray that today we will seek His face, honor His name, and live our lifetime for Him – fully. Re visit if you will Matthew 24:26.
Stephanie
