For Deanne

At the beginning of Lamentations Chapter 3, Jeremiah is talking about how the wrath of God is being poured down on him.

"I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of [God's] fury," he says.
"Against me alone he turns his hand again and again, all day.
He has worn away my skin and flesh, he has broken my bones.
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship...
He has walled me in, so I can't escape; he has weighed me down with chains.
Even when I cry out, pleading for help, he shuts out my prayer...
I'm a laughingstock to all my people, the butt of their taunts all day long...

I have been so deprived of peace, I have so forgotten what happiness is, that I think, "My strength is gone, and so is my hope in the Lord..."
They are always on my mind; this is why I am so depressed."

The man is just plain whining. It's poetic, but it's whining. It's okay to whine sometimes. We need it. This world is just plain miserable; it's cursed, and so sometimes we feel like, damn THIS SUCKS.

But check it out. That's not the end. Verse 21-23.

But in my mind I keep returning to something, something that gives me hope -
that the grace of the Lord is not exhausted, that His compassion has not ended.
[On the contrary,] they are new every morning! How great your faithfulness!
"The Lord is all I have," I say; "therefore I will put my hope in Him."

Whine away. We need friends for ears and sometimes for buckets to dump on. But in the end, God's there.

You won't realize that God is all you need, until God is all you have.

I love you, beautiful. You're a princess.