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I read through a short little book this past summer called "A Tale of Three Kings" by Gene Edwards. If you've ever felt broken or lonely than this book is for you. It's amazing how the Psalms can bring such comfort when you are being crushed under the weight of your circumstances. When we walked through the darkest moments of our cancer trial more people quoted the Psalms to us than from any other book...by far. The Psalms were written by someone who not only understood brokenness but who endured it. I've pulled an excerpt from the book below which spoke to me. Suffering is difficult but it does serve a purpose in God's grand design. We need look no further than the Son of David who was the Suffering Servant and who can sympathize with those who suffer...
Caves are not the ideal place for morale building. There is a certain sameness to them all, no matter how many you have lived in. Dark. Wet. Cold. Stale. A cave becomes even worse when you are its sole inhabitant...and in the distance you can hear the dogs baying.
But sometimes, when the dogs and hunters were not near, the hunted sang. He started low, then lifted his voice and sang the song the little lamb had taught him. The cavern walls echoed each note just as the mountains had once done. The music rolled down into deep cavern darkness that soon became an echoing choir singing back to him.
He had less not hen when he was a shepherd, for now he had no lyre, no sun, not even the company of sheep. The memories of the court had faded. David's greatest ambition now reached no higher than a shepherd's staff. Everything was being crushed out of him.
He sang a great deal.
And matched each note with a tear.
How strange, is it not, what suffering begets?
There in those caves, drowned in the sorrow of his song and in the song of his sorrow, David became the greatest hymn writer and the greatest comforter of broken hearts this world shall ever know.
