Episode
Hope in the Ash Heap
- Podcast
- Grace for All
- Published
- Sep 11, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 293
- Processing state
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- https://graceforall.captivate.fm/episode/hope-in-the-ash-heap
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Summary
Lamentations 3:21-23 (NRSV) But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. We sing the wonderful hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” with such warmth that it’s easy to imagine it coming from a quiet, sunny morning. It didn’t. Those words grew out of destruction and rubble. Almost the whole book of Lamentations is raw grief. In 586 BC, the Babylonians took Jerusalem, and it wasn’t just a wall or a building that came down. It was everything: home, freedom, worship, and identity. The people were dragged into exile among strangers, and underneath it all they suspected that their own unfaithfulness had helped land them there. So it’s a sad and somber book. Which is what makes verse 21 so surprising. Right in the middle of the loss and grief, the writer stops and says, “This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.” Remarkably, the writer says this even though nothing around him had changed. The walls weren’t rebuilt. The exile didn’t end. What changed was what he remembered. He remembered that God had been there with Israel when the nation faced tough times before. God hadn’t walked away this time either. Even in disaster, God’s love hadn’t run out. And here’s the part I find most encouraging: God’s mercies are new every morning. They’re not a lifetime supply handed out once, but fresh daily, sized exactly for whatever is facing you today. Like manna in the wilderness, you get today’s portion, today. And that’s all any of us need. Just enough to get us through today. Maybe you’re looking at something in your own life that feels destroyed — a relationship, a plan, a version of your life you’d counted on. The wreckage can be devastating. I…