Lamentations 3:21
“This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →He deliberately calls one thing to mind, and on that one thing his hope begins to rise again.
What Does Lamentations 3:21 Mean?
Here is the great turning of the entire book, hinging on a single deliberate act: 'This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.' After all the bitterness, the sufferer chooses to call something else to memory. Hope does not arrive because the circumstances changed; nothing outward has changed. It arrives because he turns his mind toward a truth greater than his pain.
Notice that hope is born of recollection. The man does not summon hope out of nothing; he remembers something that was always true, and the remembering rekindles it. What he is about to recall fills the next verses. This verse teaches one of Scripture's deepest lessons about the grieving heart: that we are often saved not by new information but by deliberately turning our minds back to what we already know of God.