KEEP PSALM AND CARRY ON Friday, March 4
Psalm 42:9-11: I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?” Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. I am always drawn to the Psalms, which makes sense because poetry, journaling, and songwriting have been powerful forms of self-expression for me since I was pretty young. I actually still have a diary from a bazillion years ago when I was just about the same age as my son. Parts of it are “dear diary” entries, but a lot of it was prayer journaling. I learned at a young age that talking to God was always available to me, and that is how I built my relationship with the Divine: I just talked to God through my multi-colored retractable ballpoint pen. From the swelling in my chest, I poured out the love and pain I felt for those suffering around me, roared anger from the heat in my belly out in messy scribbles, and often smeared the pages with splashing tears. I imagine the Psalmists were pretty much the same (sans multicolor pen and jewel-tone pages.) Why have you forgotten me? Why can’t I change? Why can’t I kick this habit? Why, when I try so hard to speak and act from love, do I still say and do hurtful things? Must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me? My son told me he thinks sin is like a bully that tries to force us to do things we don’t want to do, but if we learn to ignore it, eventually it will go away. I loved this. But sometimes it feels like the bully is never going to leave me alone, that I’m not strong enough to ignore it, and I feel trapped under the weight of shame and helplessness. As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?” Listen, I don’t really have adversaries. I mean, there are some people that rub me the wrong way, and I’m sure I have some haters in the world, but I just don’t really pay them mind because emotionally, I. just. can’t. Instead, I try to draw good boundaries that allow me to love them without being abused. However, I do deeply desire to be seen for my intentions. More importantly, I want to leave a lasting net-positive impact, but my deadly wound pulls me into
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