For two weeks I have failed to finish a blog posting and feel frustrated. Due to my husband’s truck wreck, I have found myself managing time differently. And I have not been able to sit down in quiet and gather my thoughts.
Yet, I have worked hard to keep up with my daily Bible study and the psalms are still being read. In fact today I read Psalms 111-113, and I find myself still thinking how these psalms fit into our lives yet today.
What I wanted to share these past two weeks is that the psalms speak to us even when we struggle over and over again. Psalm 88 is a prime example of how we can talk to God when we feel at the very brink of sanity due to all the troubles we face:
Lord, you are the God who saves me;
day and night I cry out to you.
2 May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.
3 I am overwhelmed with troubles
and my life draws near to death.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am like one without strength.
5 I am set apart with the dead,
like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
who are cut off from your care.
6 You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.
7 Your wrath lies heavily on me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.[d]
8 You have taken from me my closest friends
and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
9 my eyes are dim with grief.
I call to you, Lord, every day;
I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you show your wonders to the dead?
Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
11 Is your love declared in the grave,
your faithfulness in Destruction[e]?
12 Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?
13 But I cry to you for help, Lord;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 Why, Lord, do you reject me
and hide your face from me?
15 From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
your terrors have destroyed me.
17 All day long they surround me like a flood;
they have completely engulfed me.
18 You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
darkness is my closest friend. [NIV]
Read through this psalm and consider the times in your life when you were at a low spot—or a valley as in Psalm 23. Look at verse 3. How many times do we say that in our lives? Yet, God never wears out on us.
I apologize for not writing the past two weeks. I am managing the troubles in our household the best I can without losing focus. I have not forgotten any of you and want you to know that I am keeping you in prayer.
Please, too, keep my husband in prayer. The healing process is lengthy for the type of injuries he incurred, but he survived the accident, which is a miracle. In fact, whenever we have to review the accident with yet another specialist, they, too, are in awe that he survived as well as he has. In these conversations, we are reminded that God rode right along with him during this accident and for that I read and pray the psalms of praise.
Please join me in a prayer taken from Psalms 23:
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
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