Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Allison.

Today's scripture offers us a wiser way of being human as we step into the day.

Today's passage is for this season when you've been praying and the circumstances haven't changed.

When you're doing your best and still the situation remains hard.

This is a scripture for resilient hope, hope that is honest, grounded, and stubborn in the very best way.

Today's reading comes from Lamentations 3, 19 through 26.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassion's never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, the Lord is my portion. Therefore, I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those

whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation

of the Lord. This is a passage that is so familiar

to many of us, and it's rooted in some pretty brutally raw honesty. Lamentations isn't a book we

necessarily quote on greeting cards. It's raw. It's grief soaked. It's scripture that's telling

the truth.

And that matters because so many of us have been trained to skip over the hard, straight to the hope.

We want to jump over pain and get to the lesson.

We want to tidy up the story.

We want to fix it quickly.

We want the healing to begin.

But lamentations refuses to bypass the ache.

It starts with memory. I remember my affliction. My soul is downcast within me. That's emotional honesty. And then comes a turning point that is subtle,

but it's psychologically profound. Yet this I call to mind. Hope begins here, not by changing the situation, but by shifting attention.

And I want to really underline that, because when you're in a long season, shifting attention can

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