How Long, O Lord?

I write this as we end another school year and enter into the summer months that we Michiganders have longed for. This can be a time of excitement, refreshment, and joy. But the burdens of this life don’t always follow our seasons or calendars. I am fully aware that while some of us may be entering a period of delight, others may be facing a difficult situation: the loss of a job, a prognosis that doesn’t look hopeful, or a relationship that continues to be broken. This week’s passage looks at Psalm 13, a lament in which David openly cries out to the Lord for help.  

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”  

12 years ago, our family started out on an adoption journey. We felt called by the Lord to pursue adoption, so we eagerly jumped into the necessary training, paperwork, background checks, and fundraising. Just as a family anticipates a child through a biological pregnancy, we anticipated that in a year’s time, we could be welcoming a new child into our home.  

We had many “almost” adoptions as we worked through the process where families are matched with expectant birth-moms. But each time we thought it was really going to happen, something fell through. Needless to say, it was a rollercoaster of emotions.  

“Consider and answer me, O Lord my God.”

After a year of waiting, we had to renew our home study paperwork with our adoption specialist. This meant more interviews, more paperwork, more money. We were at a fork in the road. Did God really want us to pursue adoption, or was it something that we had just talked ourselves into? After earnestly seeking the Lord in prayer, we kept arriving at the same answer: stay the course.  

“I have trusted in your steadfast love.”  

Each year that passed, we arrived again at another fork in the road. More prayer and questioning, but the same answer: stay the course. So, more interviews, more paperwork, more money. More waiting. How long, O Lord? After three and a half years, we finally got the call that we had waited for. And it was unexpected. A baby boy was just born and needed a family– that day! We dropped everything and drove. Friends and colleagues took on responsibilities for us so that we could go meet the child we had just learned of and knew so little about. And he has been with us ever since that day. The Lord knew, in his good timing, when Taylor would be ready to join our family. The Lord knew the lessons that we needed to learn during our time of waiting and questioning. He knew that any sense of accomplishment or achievement that we felt through this adoption process needed to be wrested from our hearts. He taught us what it looks like to trust Him in times when it feels like all hope is gone. His timing is perfect, ours is not.  

As David said, so, too, we say, “I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” If you find yourself in a valley of difficulty or hopelessness, please lean into the raw truth expressed in this Psalm. And let us carry one another’s burdens as a church, those of us who are in times of bounty coming alongside those of us in times of difficulty.