In all: His mercy

Wow.  A new year.  A new decade.  I know, it's been a couple weeks already, but I'm still letting the new year sink in.  New Year’s Eve is actually one of my favorite holidays and for several reasons, but mostly because there comes with it a mysterious mixture of reminiscence and hope. Reminiscence over what the past year has brought and what growing has taken place.  Hope over what a new year can bring and what new changes can be made to continue the uphill stride of personal growth.

At the close of 2019 I found myself not only reviewing the past year but also doing a very broad overview of the past 10 years to revisit where I’ve been and how that has resulted in the person I am today.  A lot of great things happened in the past ten years: making new friends, getting acquainted with national parks across the US, discovering the beginning pieces of my purpose, completing the first half of my bachelor's degree, and traveling overseas for the first and second times. 
Hand-in-hand with these great times, though, have been my worst physical and emotional pain: watching my dad deteriorate every day for 2 years, moving 4 times, intense loneliness, coping with physical pain, and the deaths of my dad and my brother.  These are the things that have cut like a sword and left me a different person than the person I was in 2010.

It’s probably not much different for you; you may look back on the past decade with an inner throb of pain over your defining moments.  Maybe you even feel—like I have at times—that God has turned His face from you.  That His goodness cannot be seen in the places you’ve been.  I have been there in the past decade.  That’s when I found out about the Psalm 136 exercise, which helped my thoughts begin to turn around.

If you are familiar with Psalm 136, you will remember that every other line declares “His mercy endures forever” as a conclusion from the preceding line.  So I took the structure of Psalm 136 and wrote the Sharon version, inserting experiences from my own life and following up with “His mercy endures forever.”  I especially included things in my life that, to me, had no hint of God's mercy.  I did this because I knew that my feelings did not change the reality: God's mercy was in everything, and I had to set it before my mind simply because it was truth whether or not I believed it.

The process of doing this exercise and then being able to go back to it was an immense help to me as I struggled to keep His love and mercy for me within view.  Below I share a piece of my personal Psalm 136, and I highly encourage you to create your own version if you haven’t already as you start fresh in this new year and new decade.  Whether your past decade (or more) has been messy or joyful, constructing a Psalm 136 of your own will help you remember that all the good and the bad comes from one source: God’s mercy poured out on you.

As you consider this exercise, keep in mind the definition of “mercy.”  The most relevant and comprehensible definition for mercy that I have found is stated as “an act of kindness, compassion, or favor; something that gives evidence of divine favor.”  That’s what every defining moment of your life springs from. 

To Him who gave me parents who serve the Lord,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who granted me salvation,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who called my brother to Iraq,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who took us through our unknown future,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who took my brother Home,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who caused my dad to have an incurable disease,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who provided a difficult workplace,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who led my dad through

the valley of the shadow of death,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who loved me through my doubt,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who provided for our daily needs,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who directed me to college,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who held me fast,

His mercy endures forever;

To Him who never lets me down,

His mercy endures forever.