Help, GOD—the bottom has fallen out of my life!

Master, hear my cry for help!

Listen hard! Open your ears!

Listen to my cries for mercy.

If you, GOD, kept records on wrongdoings,

who would stand a chance?

As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit,

and that’s why you’re worshiped.

I pray to GOD—my life a prayer—

and wait for what he’ll say and do.

My life’s on the line before God, my Lord,

waiting and watching till morning,

waiting and watching till morning.

Oh Israel, wait and watch for GOD—

with GOD’s arrival comes love,

with GOD’s arrival comes generous redemption.

No doubt about it—he’ll redeem Israel,

buy back Israel from captivity to sin.

PSALM 130

Hope is a projection of the imagination; so is despair. Despair all too readily embraces the ills it foresees; hope is an energy and arouses the mind to explore every possibility to combat them . . . .

In response to hope the imagination is aroused to picture every possible issue, to try every door, to fit together even the most heterogeneous pieces in the puzzle. After the solution has been found it is difficult to recall the steps taken—so many of them are just below the level of consciousness.

THORNTON WILDER