It was the winter of 2017. News of Tom’s cancer diagnosis was devastating and it felt like a heavy burden on my soul. Tom was my spiritual father whom I met back in 2012 when I was a freshman. We grew close when he came on to be a campus safety officer that fall and stepped in to be our Christian Fellowship advisor. He adopted me (not legally) to be his daughter as he had always wanted one and he was my friend and father. It was painfully hard to accept that Tom was sick and had only a few months to live, there was nothing they could do…
One day, as I was sitting on my bed, I started to weep. And then I came across this passage from Psalm 42:
1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
among the festive throng.
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
6 My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
If there was ever a moment where I felt that the Scriptures were describing exactly what I was feeling, this was one of those times. I picked up my guitar and started to sing:
All Your waves and breakers have swept over me.
The Lord met me in a very special way, through my tears and sorrow, I felt His comfort and yet, hope in the midst of the pain. And it became my anthem that season.
Still I will praise You / You are my hope / You’re my Savior and my God
I pray that you too, will find Him in the dark night of the soul. When tears have been your food day and night, you will know that He meets you, right where you are.