Mercy in Misery

We’ve just entered 2024. As I type, I am thinking about a few people I know who have started the new year with pain and sorrow. Saying ‘Happy New Year’ seems cruel for so many. Starting a new year seems like such a big turning point and our calendars do indeed still turn (if you still have paper calendars).

However, there is hope for the hurting in 2024. There is mercy in misery. I have found that to be true in my darkest moments. When I was going through cancer for the second time in 2021, I wrote in a small notebook new mercies that I found each day. This became particularly important for me to not wallow in despair when I was isolated in hospital. I was determined to profess that the goodness of God could still be found from my hospital bed, and that His truth could still penetrate my aching heart and anxious mind.

Some of the mercies recorded in ‘My Mercy Book’ included:

The touch of a reassuring, caring nurse.
A consultant who is willing to do his research and answer questions.
Friends who pray for me.
Being able to give myself injections and swallow tablets.
The days when I’m feeling well.
A little spider in my hospital room — a little reminder of my fears (afraid of spiders!), yet I am not the only living thing in my room. I have a friend.
Isaiah 26:3 – ‘You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.’
Two sparrows on the bird feeder outside my bedroom window and how my Heavenly Father says that I am more precious than many sparrows.

This small book contains so many moments both big and small of God’s faithfulness in my suffering. I started writing it before treatment and continued it throughout and after. If anything, it is when I am well and comfortable that I forget how merciful and compassionate God is. Returning once again to ‘The Mercy Book’ shows God’s faithfulness and my own faith in the darkest moments of my life.

Grace for the Grief

In a world that distracts itself from pain, distances itself from disease, seeks pleasure as an entitlement, and despises any hint of discomfort, it is a reminder that we are surrounded by moments that can and should cause us to pause and praise.

However, I also kept another list in the back of my book simply labelled ‘Griefs’. There were and still are many things that cause me to grieve. I didn’t want to suppress the reality of the pain and sorrow, but I had to turn my eyes upon Jesus and trust that He would take care of my deepest wounds. Even in my grief, God grieves with me. One day, pain and sorrow cease. Until then, there is grace for grief.

Every single day that the sun rises and eventually sets, we complete another day. For each new day, there are new mercies. Lamentations 3:22-23 says:

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 do not need to wait another year to know that the Lord’s love never ceases and that His mercies never end. In fact, His mercies are new every morning. His compassion and faithfulness can be known even in the darkest hour.

The Greatest Grace This Year and Always

If we want to know what mercy looks like, we look at the cross of Jesus. In times of utmost hopelessness, despair and grief, we cannot begin to fathom all that Jesus suffered in our place, so that we might be reconciled to Him. He paid a debt we could never settle. Yet, He didn’t begrudgingly die for us. He willingly went to the cross — a plan put in place before the foundation of the world —to seek and save lost sinners in need of a Saviour. A Good Shepherd who laid down His life for His sheep. Because He loves us.

It is also because He lives that we can face every day with Him. Our God loves for that is who He is. In our trials and heartache, we have a suffering Saviour who entered into our deepest pit. In the depths of our pain as we cry out in anguish we can be met time and again by the steadfastness of His love.

Great is His faithfulness.