“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”- Psalm 42:11
At the conclusion of Chapter 12 of Fear Not Tomorrow, Ruth Graham relates the Biblical account of Mary’s arrival at the tomb of Jesus in the early morning hours of Easter Sunday. Mary was wailing, totally overcome with grief. Perhaps, as the Concordia Self-Study Bible notes, Jesus first appeared to Mary because she needed Him the most. Jesus, knowing that He soon would ascend into heaven and that Mary couldn’t hold on to the Jesus she’d known in the past, wanted to enlarge her perspective and move her forward, to give her not only hope, but as future as well.
In the despair of our adversity, isn’t that also our greatest desire- to see God at work and know that He is there for us? Ruth offers these words of encouragement:
“God has a tomorrow for us. He has work for us to do, and He is going to be there in it for us. So often we don’t see Him for who He is because in our human weakness, we are overwhelmed by our pain. But if we. . . can come up out of our of our grief and focus on the character of God, then we will see Him. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us do that. . . .”
