Read: Psalm 32

For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
-Psalm 32:4

I’ve lived in some pretty hot places in the course of my life. India; Iran; Stockton, California; Boise, Idaho. Having grown up in the temperate climate of San Francisco, it took moving far from the Bay Area to appreciate the meaning of “debilitating climate” (try Kolkata in August). But far worse, especially when coupled with the heat of summer, is the turpitude of the soul. I’d rather cross the burning deserts of Iran’s Dasht-e-Lut than experience the bone-crushing weariness of a crisis of faith and the loss of hope that attends it. But what has always saved me is love — and that love originates from a source more eternal than the sun and is just as surely reflected by those who have chosen to share that love with me.

Lord, thank you for sustaining me in my most difficult moments of doubt and anxiety, and for your constant reminder that, in the words of the psalm, “many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him. Amen.
-Michael Boss