Living in the Valley of Disappointment

Living Broken Again  BLOG By Susan Vaughan Shumake
August 29, 2022

*****
"it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord."

Living in the Valley of Disappointment
Waking every day within the Deep
Grieving all the loss of dissolution
Sorrow fills this Daughter that You keep.

Living in this place of desperation
Emptiness leaves me weeping on the floor
Everyone around me moving forward
Yet I’m stuck bound by Brokenness once more

My body is fading in the shadows
My strength is melting in Your hands
I am nothing but Broken for my Master
Bleeding Brokenness within Your plans

Living in the Valley of Disappointment  
Brings me to that old familiar ground
Clinging to Your mercy every morning
Waiting for Your Love to lift me out.

Lamentations 3:1-26
New International Version

3 [a]I am the man who has seen affliction
    by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
2 He has driven me away and made me walk
    in darkness rather than light;
3 indeed, he has turned his hand against me
    again and again, all day long.

4 He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
    and has broken my bones.
5 He has besieged me and surrounded me
    with bitterness and hardship.
6 He has made me dwell in darkness
    like those long dead.

7 He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
    he has weighed me down with chains.
8 Even when I call out or cry for help,
    he shuts out my prayer.
9 He has barred my way with blocks of stone;
    he has made my paths crooked.

10 Like a bear lying in wait,
    like a lion in hiding,
11 he dragged me from the path and mangled me
    and left me without help.
12 He drew his bow
    and made me the target for his arrows.

13 He pierced my heart
    with arrows from his quiver.
14 I became the laughingstock of all my people;
    they mock me in song all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitter herbs
    and given me gall to drink.

16 He has broken my teeth with gravel;
    he has trampled me in the dust.
17 I have been deprived of peace;
    I have forgotten what prosperity is.
18 So I say, “My splendor is gone
    and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”

19 I remember my affliction and my wandering,
    the bitterness and the gall.
20 I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me.
21 Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:

22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”

25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
    to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.

Believe the Beautiful!