Hopelessly hopeful

Now, has anyone ever felt the way the author of Lamentations does in these verses below?:

'He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;

he has made my chains heavy;

though I call and cry for help,

he shuts out my prayer;

he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;

he has made my paths crooked.

He is a bear lying in wait for me,

a lion in hiding;

he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces;

he has made me desolate;

he bent his bow and set me

as a target for his arrow.

He drove into my kidneys

the arrows of his quiver;

I have become the laughingstock of all peoples,

the object of their taunts all day long.

He has filled me with bitterness;

he has sated me with wormwood

He has made my teeth grind on gravel,

and made me cower in ashes;

my soul is bereft of peace;

I have forgotten what happiness is;

so I say, “My endurance has perished;

so has my hope from the Lord.”

Remember my affliction and my wanderings,

the wormwood and the gall!

My soul continually remembers it

and is bowed down within me.

But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul“therefore I will hope in him.”

The Lord is good to those who wait for him,

to the soul who seeks him.

It is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

It is good for a man that he bear

the yoke in his youth.

Let him sit alone in silence

when it is laid on him;

let him put his mouth in the dust—

there may yet be hope;

let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,

and let him be filled with insults.

For the Lord will not

cast off forever,

but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion

according to the abundance of his steadfast love'

Lamentations 3:7-32

Ever felt like that? Utterly bereft? Not knowing what to do or what's coming next? Not sure if there is hope for improvement because of the dire situation you're in? 

I read this at the weekend and could resonate with this. There are some problems that I don't know how to overcome, the struggle in our household is real and really difficult. I feel desperate. God isn't allowing us to escape this trial. We are having to walk through it. It's really, really difficult. It's emotionally draining and I feel like I'm going in circles. I feel exasperated and desperate. Where is God in all this?

Have you ever had a situation where you feel like this? Maybe you're in one right now.

I'm feeling like this, and I would consider myself an optimist! 

I read this section in Lamentations, and bizarrely it helped. Other people feel desperate, alone and hopeless too.

I like the verses where the writer says that they have no hope, then a few lines later that they do have hope. I think I understand that. In myself, I have nothing more. I have nothing more to give, and what I do have is not enough. Therefore I have no more hope in myself. I am at the end of what I can do. I am hopeless. So where do I go from here? In the middle of all this I have to do my best, as this writer does, to remember who God is. 

Our situations can knock us sideways, they can kick us whilst we are down, they can cause us to doubt who we are, but, whatever is happening in your life, please remember not who you are, but who God is. 

Who He is never changes, He is good, He is strong, He is, 'good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.'

So, in the hopelessness and desperation, you can keep going. Wait for Him, seek Him. There is hope even if resolution seems far off:

For the Lord will not

cast off forever,

but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion

according to the abundance of his steadfast love'