Welcome to today's Our Daily Bread.

Our Reading is titled Divine Tenderness.

I'm Sheridan Voizzi.

I once heard a businessman describe his years in college as a time when he felt helpless and hopeless from bouts of depression.

Sadly, he never talked to a doctor about these feelings, but instead started making more drastic plans,

ordering a book on suicide from his local library and setting a date to take his life.

God cares for the helpless and hopeless.

We see this in his treatment of biblical characters during their own dark times.

When Jonah wanted to die, in Jonah chapter 4, God engaged him in tender conversation.

When Elijah asked God to take his life in 1st Kings 19, God provided bread and water to refresh him, spoke gently to him, and helped him see he

wasn't as alone as he thought. God approaches the downhearted with tender, practical help.

The library notified the student when his book on suicide was ready to collect. But in a mix-up,

the note went to his parents' address instead.

When his mother called him, distraught, he realised the devastation his suicide would bring.

Without that address mix-up, he says, he wouldn't be here today. I don't believe that student

was saved by luck or by chance.

Whether it's bread and water when we need it or a timely wrong address,

when mysterious intervention saves our lives,

we've encountered divine tenderness.

Today's scripture reading is from 1st Kings chapter 19, verses 3 to 10 and 15 to 18.

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.

When he came to bear Sheba and Judah, he left his servant there,

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