My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

 Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; 

And by night, but I have no rest. 

Yet you are holy, 

O you who are enthroned on the praises of Israel. 

In you our fathers trusted; 

They trusted and you delivered them. 

.   .   .

By happy accident, I read the wrong bit of Psalm this morning. (I should have read Psalm 24.1-6, but never mind.)

The astonishing thing, though, is that I read it at all. For the last couple of months, I haven't been able to approach the Scripture: the darkness had become that dark. But in the life of the soul as in the cycles of day and night, it seems that the night is darkest just before the dawn. 

It is a happy accident, because for eighteen months or so, I have been utterly bewildered by this age old question: 'why have you forsaken me?' Why is it that our forebears trusted and were delivered? Why were they not disappointed? 

Slowly, though, the light has been creeping back into my soul. And today I find, to my surprise, that the sun shines. The sun shines more brightly than I thought it ever would again. 

The shadows persist, to be sure, and the road ahead still looks like a rocky climb. But I know that the light still shines, and I am not afraid.