Today's Devotional
The house is in complete disarray. My daughters, ages 1 and 21/2, look like they’ve taken a bath in chunks of avocado. Between them, there is only one socked foot. Yes, they are zoning out in front of the TV because moms and dads must eat sometime. I’m scarfing down my leftover who-knows-what-anymore when I hear the sound of dancing feet and notice that Princess Anna from “Frozen II” has started singing again.
Strangely, it’s not the sound of “Let It Go” that fills my house, but Anna singing:
“This grief has a gravity
It pulls me down
But a tiny voice whispers in my mind
‘You are lost, hope is gone
But you must go on
And do the next right thing.’ ”
I find myself wondering if the composer of this song knew that they had written a modern-day psalm for my little girls to sing. Like David in Psalm 36, Princess Anna is experiencing a moment of despair. Like David, she is trying to move past that grief and uncertainty toward hope as she does “the next right thing.” Like David, Anna recognizes that even in the darkness, there can still be movement toward the light that is ever-present.
For Jesus-followers, the next right thing is most often gratitude. As demonstrated in Psalm 36 (and many, many other psalms), when we practice gratitude and intentionally seek the presence and work of God around us, the gravity of grief and feelings of hopelessness are replaced with refuge in the shadow of God’s wings.
— Rev. Jenna Johnson, Wylie UMC, NTC delegate
Jenna.Johnson@wylieumc.org
