Seeing What Is Temporary

It’s important not to make an eternity out of a temporary feeling.

You know the days. It’s all you can do to get out of bed. You are so depressed, so hopeless about the world, that absolutely nothing matters.

We all go there sometimes. For some, it’s physical and requires medication. Others feel like they were hit with a big rig, and nobody should blame them for feeling paralyzed by its blows. In that light, resist anyone who lobs clichés such as, “Turn that frown upside down!” or “Suck it up and get back in the game!”

But just like seeing your problems from a higher perspective makes them seem smaller, so it is that, although everything in you says that this feeling will never end, you can discipline your mind to hold on to the truth that it is only temporary.

Your job is simply to hold on. Morning is coming.

[The LORD’s] compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

—Lamentations 3:22–24

From the book