We live in a broken world. All over the globe people suffer from conflict, disease, natural disasters, exploitation, bigotry, and injustice. We witness these struggles up close, in our communities, in the lives of our loved ones, and even in our own experiences. In the face of such difficulty, we seek comfort and security wherever we can find it.

One place where we might find comfort and security is in the stories of those who came before us. Our faith and our holy scriptures are full of generations of God’s people who have suffered and struggled through agonizing ordeals, exile and enslavement, famine and war, and who have wavered in their faithfulness to God, as we ourselves might do in our most difficult moments. It can be hard to believe in God’s goodness and mercy when our world and our own lives seem to be devoid of those gifts of a loving Creator.

In this passage, Jeremiah is reflecting on his people’s suffering. He is crying out to God, weeping tears for the slain. It is clear that Jeremiah is striving to maintain faith in God in the midst of a broken world. He questions when—or even if—his people will be healed and delivered. But the fact that he brings those questions to God shows that he still believes that God is listening.

We know that God was always faithful to God’s people. And knowing these stories, knowing this history, we can trust that God is also always faithful to us. We can learn from Jeremiah and hold on to our knowledge that God is good, merciful, present, and listening, even in the midst of struggle.