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Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals. How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. (Psalm 36:5-9)

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Our community is once again rocked by a tragic death\u2014Kevin\u2019s.\xa0 This is not the way its supposed to be.\xa0

Our words largely fail in the face of what we face, particularly in the face of the overwhelming shock and grief of a family that so many of us are connected with in so many ways.\xa0 \xa0\xa0

The psalms are there for exactly such times\u2014the times when we don\u2019t know what else to say or pray.\xa0 Psalms of lament give voice to our anger and grief.\xa0 Psalms of petition give voice to our desires for comfort and grace.\xa0 But there are also psalms that give voice to the God of refuge and love who meets us in such times.

With God is the fountain of life: the waters of baptism into Christ that marks each one of us as God\u2019s very own\u2014no matter what tragedy might befall us.\xa0 With God is the feast that nourishes us in the memory that we always have a home with Christ.\xa0 God provides for, sustains, and saves his people still.\xa0

God\u2019s love searches us and finds us\u2014no matter if we\u2019ve flown to the highest heavens or sunk to the greatest depths\u2014God is there.\xa0 Still our refuge and hiding place when our circumstances have become more than we can bear.

There are dark places in our lives.\xa0 Hard seasons with little hope.\xa0 Surreal moments that shake us to the core.\xa0

This is the darkness that Jesus entered into: the light in the darkest of places.\xa0 Our darkest places.\xa0 And our darkness does not overcome him.\xa0 Instead, in his light\u2026 ever so slowly\u2026 we begin to see light.\xa0 In his life, we begin to find life again.

Not all at once, of course.\xa0 But this prayer of God\u2019s people reminds us that it does happen.\xa0 That this is what we believe and that this is the God in whom we believe.\xa0 It is in him that we take refuge when all else is shaken and it is he that finds and saves us even when we don\u2019t.\xa0 Because his light continues to shine in the dark places.\xa0 And in his light we see light.

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