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)

Our community is once again rocked by a tragic death—Kevin’s. This is not the way its supposed to be.

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.

The psalms are there for exactly such times—the times when we don’t know what else to say or pray. Psalms of lament give voice to our anger and grief. Psalms of petition give voice to our desires for comfort and grace. 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’s very own—no matter what tragedy might befall us. With God is the feast that nourishes us in the memory that we always have a home with Christ. God provides for, sustains, and saves his people still.

God’s love searches us and finds us—no matter if we’ve flown to the highest heavens or sunk to the greatest depths—God is there. Still our refuge and hiding place when our circumstances have become more than we can bear.

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

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

Not all at once, of course. But this prayer of God’s people reminds us that it does happen. That this is what we believe and that this is the God in whom we believe. 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’t. Because his light continues to shine in the dark places. And in his light we see light.