I sat with my pen in hand, staring at my journal. The more I wrote, the more the tears started flowing. The weariness had taken over.
I don’t mean the cute dainty tears when one or two tears well up in your eyes and eventually slide gracefully down your face. These tears were the puffy-eyed, snot-nosed, blubbering tears.
I tried to hold them in, but before I knew it, it was an all-out boo-hoo fest as I sat in my bed waiting for God to answer me.
I’d written “I’m SO, SO tired. I’m tired of this. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t feel this hurt and pain anymore. How much longer will this go on?” The “this” referred to the suffering–the agonizing, seemingly endless waiting and watching for my mom’s suffering to end. An ending that only the Lord could bring through miraculous healing or taking her to be with Him. I didn’t know for which to pray; I honestly didn’t know which option I wanted more. My hope and prayers for miraculous healing had long since passed.
All I knew was that I wanted the suffering to end, the suffering that wore me down.
“I am tired from my groaning…”
Maybe you’ve kept reading this because you’ve found yourself in a similar situation now or in the past. You’ve desperately wanted your or a loved one’s pain and struggle to end. I don’t blame you because there’s a weariness and fatigue that accompanies suffering, particularly long-enduring suffering. Maybe you’ve long since stopped praying or hoping. Maybe you find yourself asking how long your suffering will continue.
I remember being in that vulnerable, weak place. In June 2015, when my mom was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, the research placed her prognosis between an average of six to eight years of life. That seemed infinite at the time. I wondered what would happen to her and how I would watch my mother (and my best friend) slowly decline. I even remember well-meaning people stating that people with Alzheimer’s would sometimes live 10 or 20 years. Woefully, the thought of her suffering for 20 years felt earth-shattering and brought anguish to my spirit.
David’s Example of Weariness
My fellow sojourner, you’re not alone in your weariness. Yes, I’ve experienced it, but even more, God knows your weariness too. The words of David in Psalm 6:6-7 echo the sentiment that weary suffering sojourners know all too well, “I am weary from my groaning; with my tears I dampen my bed and drench my couch every night. My eyes are swollen from grief; they grow old because of all my enemies.”
These words speak to the very depth of what weariness looks, feels, and sounds like, and the Lord placed it in His word for you and me to read. It’s okay for the weary to grieve and cry out to the Lord. Like a parent who expects their tired newborn to cry, God knows His finite children grow weary.
But stay encouraged, fellow sojourner, because look at what David says next in verse eight.
“Depart from me, all evildoers, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.”
In his weariness, David confidently professes that the Lord has heard his weary cry, and in boldness, he demands his opponents, who cause him grief and suffering, leave him. Wow! What certainty David states amid his suffering! That is, the Lord has heard his weeping. Again, think how attentive a parent is to the sounds and cries of their children. That’s how the Lord heard my cries that day, and that’s how He hears yours.
Finally, David concludes this brief psalm with a victorious end.
“The Lord has heard my plea for help; the Lord accepts my prayer. All my enemies will be ashamed and shake with terror; they will turn back and suddenly be disgraced.” (Psalm 6:9-10)
He is confident God has heard his plea for help and accepts his prayer. But he doesn’t stop there. Because he knows the Lord hears him and will respond to his accepted prayer, he knows the Lord will fight for him in his suffering. His enemies, who have brought him weariness and weeping, will be quaking in their boots because of the Lord. They will flee David and face public shame for retreating, a dishonorable scandal in David’s time.
How can David make these bold claims? He doesn’t root his claims in arrogance and overconfidence. From his deep-rooted trust in the Lord, David proclaims with confidence. He knows the truth of God’s unchanging character very well.
Sojourner, you have this same assurance in God’s response to you, too. Psalm 18:6 says, “I called to the Lord in my distress, and I cried to my God for help. From his temple, He heard my voice, and my cry to him reached His ears.” He hears you, weary sojourner. Although He reigns in the heavens, He cares and attends His ear to you!
You may wonder what happened after I cried out to the Lord in my weariness. My weariness didn’t just disappear in that moment. After that, the suffering continued long after those words. In fact, countless times I cried out with those familiar words. But you know what? Faithfully, God met me in the pages of His word when I was weary. Each day, he provided me strength to get through the weariness. He soothed my tears. The Lord used community to bring comfort. By His grace, He gave me joy when the weariness weighed heavy. Eventually, He removed the weariness of that suffering season when He took my mom to be with Him.
However deep your weariness, let the consoling news that He accepts your prayers seep into your very being and soul and continue to cry out to him when you’re weary. Cry out, and He will hear you (Psalm 34:17). He will hear you, and He will meet you in your weariness!
“He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:29-31 CSB