Lamentations 3:55-58 “I called on Your name O LORD, out of the lowest pit. You have heard my voice. . . . You drew near when I called on You; You said, ‘Do not fear’. O Lord, You pled my soul’s cause; You have redeemed my life.”
Observation: God used this passage to minister to me when my wife, Cindy, passed away. Because it has come in today’s reading, I want to journal the story again so the impact of God’s hand during that time might be felt afresh.
Application: The crushing immediacy of grief has thankfully dimmed, but I have not forgotten that God was manifest as I walked through the ending of Cindy’s life on earth. In the weeks following her death, the Lord dealt once and for all with a question that still loomed in my mind: how is she now, really? She had been so ill for so long, and we had been so helpless in the face of advancing disease. So how is she now, Lord, really?
My journey to peace began a few days before Cindy died when the mortician asked, “Does she have a favorite life verse?” The children and I responded in unison, “Yes, Jeremiah 33:3,” which she had always called “God’s phone number”: “Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”
During Cindy’s memorial service, I heard God’s phone number in other verses—one I shared I had read to her just hours before she died, Psalm 17:6, and one was read by a dear friend, Psalm 91:15. But my heart still cried for evidence that Cindy was now free of illness, enjoying her new, perfect body. I wasn’t asking God for an apparition in the night, just some reassurance from His Word that all was now well for her. I didn’t realize He had already begun that process through the verses shared above.
For the next month or so, I awakened unusually early—3:55, 3:56, 3:57, or 3:58. Always one of those four times. Finally, it occurred that perhaps the Lord was communicating to me through those numbers, so I began searching Scriptures. Only one book in the entire Bible has a chapter 3 with that many verses: Lamentations. There, again, is what Cindy called God’s phone number. His promise is that He hears and responds to the cry of His children as we call upon Him. Like the children of Israel, it is good that we remember His past involvement in our lives. It is good to recount His glorious deeds. O beloved, “taste and see that the LORD is good!” (Ps. 34:8).
Prayer: Great and glorious are Your works, O Lord. Your watchcare is forever; You are faithful to deliver. Thank You for renewing the joy of my salvation, Lord. I choose today to rest in Your peace.