Now, if we're honest, reading the Bible consistently can be a challenge, but know that it's never too late to start and we're in this together.

Thanks for journeying with us.

And here's your host, Emma, daughter.

Thanks for joining.

Today, we are reading Lamentations 3 through 5, and I am in the podcast studio with a faithful watermark member, Brad Pollock. Hello, Emma. Good to be here. Great to have you back, Brad. Last time you were here with Wes, I believe. I was. So it's good to spend some time with you in the studio. We're going to link your past episodes, since it was fairly recently, where you shared your story of grace. So this time I thought it might be neat if you

shared a little bit about what you do here at Watermark. Yeah, absolutely. So I am the men's care

ministry director here at Watermark. So I have the privilege of overseeing a couple of our care

ministries. So specifically our divorce recovery ministry for adults and kids, our careers in motion ministry, which is a

ministry for people walking through unemployment and joblessness. Also our mend ministry, which is

the men sexual abuse ministry. And finally, I get to oversee our staff on call process, which

just serves to provide pastoral care to anyone

who calls in to the church or walks into our campus.

Personally, I've gotten to benefit from your staff on call trainings, which are so helpful

for us.

So thank you for all you do, Brad, and I'm excited you're here to talk with us about lamentations,

even though it's some heavy topic. So why don't you start with Chapter 3 and just kind of set it up for us?

Walk us through. What do you think is important to highlight as we think about our study of these chapters?

Yeah, definitely. So, you know, in Chapter 3, we're seeing Israel's grief after Jerusalem's destruction.

At the beginning of chapter three, Jeremiah is kind of just unloading all of this despair

and emotional pain.

And so I think just even right out of the gate, that is such a good reminder to us that

God doesn't ask us to ignore our pain or suffering and that he actually

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