Psalm 119:147 Cry & Hope

I rise before dawn and cry for help;
I have put my hope in your word.

Psalm 119:147

There are days I get up in the morning and have trouble summoning up hope for my day.

Today was one of those days.

I didn't sleep well.

Sometime around 2:30 I woke up and went to the bathroom, a regular occurrence for me and mos other men my age. Usually I fall back to sleep within a minute or two. Today my mind began churning through minute details of something I know I'm going to be asked to do within the next couple of weeks. It's not a task I dread. I have confidence I'll do it well. But the analytical part of my brain chose this moment to fire off the neurons and organize all my thoughts on the topic and try to put them into a workable order. At the same time, another part of my mind was telling the rest of my brain to settle down and let me go back to sleep.

I eventually went back to sleep, but that sort of half-awake mental gymnastics always leaves me exhausted.

I would also realize, as my body tried to get going this morning, that part of why I felt so sleep-deprived is that the sniffles of the past few days are shifting into full blown winter cold. Not good.

My bad knee has also been aching more than usual due to the colder winter weather, to the extent that I'm never not dealing with some level of pain.

I looked in the mirror this morning and saw the face of an old man in obvious discomfort. I wondered to myself, who is this person I've become?

This combined mental and physical toll isn't helping the emotional and spiritual troubles I've been struggling with for several days. I've realized that I'm allowing my curmudgeonly habits to take control of my interpersonal relationships at work. Last week a woman in a nearby office group said, "You're a jerk!"

She's right. I have been a jerk. I really don't like the version of me that has been dominating my life the past few weeks.

It would be easy to just give in to the persona of the old curmudgeon. It seems to be what people do. The older people get, I've always said, the more they become the very people they always were in reality behind the mask they were wearing when they were younger.

Is there any hope of not being that person?

And yet God's Word tells me there is always hope.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

II Corinthians 4:16

Wow! That's a powerful promise! Do I dare hope it's true?

So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless.

Ecclesiastes 11:10

Lack of youth is no excuse for descending into anxiety and hopelessness. The Lord will give strength and power and hope.

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 50:28-31