I received a card in the mail this week with the most wonderful scripture inside. My dear friend, J, had been waiting to bless me with those verses when the time was right. The passage is Isaiah 38:10-20...

You restored me to health and let me live.

Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish.

In your love, you kept me from the pit of destruction, you have put all my sins behind your back.  For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise, those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.

The living, the living - they praise you as I am doing today!

Fathers tell their children about your faithfulness.

The Lord will save me and we will sing with stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the temple of the Lord!

J was right... the sheer joy and celebration of this passage are wonderful!  Even more resonant to me, though, is the quote she wrote on the back of the card:

In the midst of winter

I found in me an

invincible summer.

~Camus