A white friend asked me recently to write about black lives—and why they matter—for her blog. I said no. Not this time. Not again. Not when people are still honking horns and driving into protesters and screaming.

Besides, I’m tuckered out, I told her. Weary from the fight. Worn out on the battle. As Fannie Lou Hamer, the civil rights icon, put it, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Why? It gets wearying trying to convince friends and neighbors that, while all life matters, black lives matter now because, for too long, we didn’t. Moreover, people should say exactly that: Black lives matter. Say it loud. I’m Black and I’m proud. Is that so hard to just say?

For too many people, it is. So, I did an odd thing. I said, nope. Not this time. I’m taking time off.

And that was a first for me. After living while Black since birth—and writing while Black for my entire adult life—I said wait a minute. I’m stepping off stage for a sec to sit myself down.

To stop writing, speaking, talking, blah-blah-blahing. Because, after doing all of that, has enough changed? In fact, it hasn’t.

My conclusion sounds cynical and hopeless, and I despaired to stay in such a place.

So, I decided to compose this little essay—to test myself, to feel how I feel, to reflect on a moment or taking a rest. But sharing it meant finding a relaxing photo to go with it. So, you know what happened. I struggled to find a picture of a Black person taking a break.

Protest photos? Angry photos? Desperation photos? They’re all over the place.

But the photo I finally found, at the top of this post, was taken where? In my town? In yours? Nope. It’s from—wait for it—Auckland, New Zealand. Yep. I had to go that far (with thanks to Diana Simumpande at Unsplash) to find a restful Black image.

Then this past Sunday, something shifted. During a virtual Sunday school at my church, I heard a message that transcended every frustration I’d been feeling. The topic?

God’s hope.

Of all things.

Our class leader, an impassioned Bible teacher, was teaching from the Book of Lamentations. That’s the take-no-prisoners book whose name sounds like a sucker punch. And a lot of it is. As the prophet Jeremiah, the probable author, anguished about Judah’s sorrow, with its capital Jerusalem vanquished and its people exiled to Babylon:

“Her filthiness clung to her skirts…her fall was astounding” (Lamentations 1: 9 niv).

On and on Jeremiah wails—sounding not unlike some of us these days, including me.

The big surprise, however, is that before this book ends, Lamentations becomes not just a book of wailing, but Jeremiah’s classic treatise on hope. Yes, of all things.

It’s ironic because Judah’s hard-hearted people hadn’t paid a penny’s worth of attention to Jeremiah’s desperate plea: Turn back to God. But they didn’t.

So God’s wrath met them. “He has aged my flesh and my skin,” the prophet wailed, “and broken my bones” (Lamentations 3:4 nkjv). He has “torn me in pieces…broken my teeth with gravel, and covered me with ashes” (vv. 11-16).

And yet? God is still good. Or, as Jeremiah suddenly woke up and declared:

“Therefore, I have hope” (vv. 21).

The “therefore” has to do with what Jeremiah did. He finally recalled Who God is—still loving, good, merciful, kind and compassionate. Just for starters.

Talking in Sunday school last week about Jeremiah’s reckoning moment, our little group did exactly what Jeremiah did. We recalled God. Despite this long, long, long pandemic lockdown. Despite our struggle to find respite. We remembered our God. He is still good.

Then, we shouted hallelujah!

Jeremiah breaks it down like this:

“It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is thy faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” saith my soul,
“Therefore will I hope in Him!” (vv. 22-24 kjv) .

Talk about a turnaround. Jeremiah speaks what I’d neglected to do: to recall what God has always done—shown His mercy and compassion despite it all.

Our Sunday school pastor put it this way:

“Even when things are bad, they could be worse—but they’re not. Because of the Lord’s mercies, we are not consumed or destroyed. Why? God is sustaining us!”

So, when my Black life gets weary—and your life gets discouraged or confused—we can look to the Lord’s goodness to get going. Again. But, will you go with me?

If so, here’s the good news: He goes with us.

Patricia Raybon is an award-winning, best-selling author of books and essays on faith, race and grace — including I Told the Mountain to Move, My First White Friend, and her best-selling One Year devotional, God’s Great Blessings. She’s a regular contributor to Our Daily Bread Ministries and DaySpring’s (in)courage blog, and contributes often to Compassionate Christianity and to In Touch Ministries’ In Touch Magazine. 

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Any Scriptures quoted, unless noted otherwise, are the New Living Translation of the Holy Bible.