Jan 8 2019 Psalm 118:1

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his mercy endures forever.

Sometimes these words sound hollow. Good? Forever? Sometimes crummy things happen, and it’s hard to shout this with any conviction at all. This morning could feel like one of those.

Yesterday, we participated in a court proceeding that resulted in our child being committed to the mental health system for schizophrenia. Mental illness is cruel. Cruel to those who watch and love someone suffering, and more so to the person suffering.

So give thanks? His mercy? Tough. And yet, today I can give thanks. I believe the system will help, and I know that for the near future, my child is safe. I can give thanks to the Lord that we did what we could. I give thanks that I can journey through this with my great husband. I give thanks that we have taken up the phrase “self care” as a daily mantra, and have identified times when we put this drama aside, and talk about something else, or go to the bookstore, or stop for dinner.

To be clear, this isn’t a ‘rose colored glasses’ optimism. Rather, it’s an acknowledgement that despite this, God is good. All the time.

I was struck as I was reading the psalm that THIS is the psalm that we read as we process on Palm Sunday Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. I know that the Palm procession is the happy part of that morning’s service to be followed by the not so happy reading of the Passion. I’ve never really noticed any irony on Palm Sunday as I read those words, just a sense of contrived emotional toying. Really? Give thanks to the Lord? Always Good? Do you know where we’re heading after this procession? It felt more like a joke, or sarcasm.

But again today, I have a new-found appreciation for the psalms. It’s not sarcasm when I say, His mercy endures forever, or that I can genuinely give thanks. It’s more of a sense of the eternal pervasiveness of God’s goodness. In the midst of, despite, and on the other side of a crummy day.