Lamentations 3:22-23

Lamentations 3:22-23 reads: "It is because of Yahweh's loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don't fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness." It is hard to imagine a worse setting for such a beautiful line: Lamentations was written after the destruction of Jerusalem — the temple in ruins, famine, deportation — and chapter 3 reaches Lamentations 3:22-23 only after twenty verses of darkness.

Then, in verse 21, there is an explicit turn: "This I recall to my mind; therefore I have hope." Hope is not born from the situation improving; it is born from a deliberate choice to remember.

What is remembered is the essential: his mercies do not fail, they are new every morning, great is his faithfulness. Notice that the unit of time is the day. No stockpile for the year is promised; daily provision is, like manna in the wilderness.

It is one of the texts most read during long stretches of difficulty — grief, treatment, unemployment — because it shrinks the horizon to a size you can carry: today.