For the downcast soul in a season of unanswered longing.

Your tears have become your food, day and night, and the question keeps arriving: Where is your God? What do you do with a soul that asks that about you?

You have tried to answer the mockers by rehearsing your former festivals, the crowd, the holy day, the voice of joy. That memory is not a sin, but it becomes a false refuge when you use it to prove your faith is still intact. You can starve yourself on the past and call it remembering.

Christ has been where the question marks you. On the cross he was asked, in effect, where his God was, and he answered with a cry from the psalms. He did not receive a rescue that erased the cry; he received resurrection after it. The saving help of his presence is not a feeling that arrives on demand; it is the risen Christ who stands with your downcast soul.

So speak to your soul as the psalmist did: not with a scolding, but with a summons. Will you let the risen Christ be the saving help of his presence before the tears become food again tonight?