I have always gained great comfort from the Psalmists who wrote so many psalms beginning with a plea for help as they cry out to God:
Ps 57:1 Be good to me, God - and now! I’ve run to you for dear life. I’m hiding out under your wings until the hurricane blows over.
Ps 119:105-112. Everything’s falling apart on me, God, put me back together again with your word.
Ps 64: 1 “Listen and help, O God. I am reduced to a whine and a whimper, obsessed with feeling of doomsday”
Ps 86:1-2 Bend an ear, God: answer me. I’m one miserable wretch! Keep me safe – haven’t I lived a good life? Help your servant -I’m depending on you!
Ps 102:1-2 God, listen! Listen to my prayer, listen to the pain in my cries. Don’t turn your back on me just when I need you so desperately. Pay attention! This is the cry for help! And hurry – this can’t wait.
Ps 130:1-2. Help, God – the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help! Iisten hard! Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy.
Ps 142:1-2 I cry out loudly to God, loudly I plead with God for mercy. I spill out all my complaints before him, and spell out my troubles in details.
At first, I would keep reading them and take solace in that fact that I plead the same thing over and over again. Every day is a new challenge to get back up and try again. But in any given day that I feel like I am stronger and can move forward, something happens and pushes me back 2 or 3 steps again. I would feel like a failure over and over again, wondering will I ever get there? I took comfort in the fact that many of the Psalms begin with a cry out for help, and it is not always a whimper, it is often a demand using words like “help”, “listen”, “pay attention”, “listen hard”, “plead”, “open your ears”. They are often said with exclamation marks after them that feel very demanding and desperate. I was always taught to pray with respect and to begin with ‘thank you’ and “praise you God for…”. I know it is the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray and I want to be respectful indeed, but if I am honest I do find joy in the Psalmist’s cries of desperation. It is real and raw and helps me feel less like a failure and more like a normal mortal, who is simply struggling.
But today as I read more Psalms begging God to help, I was comforted by something different. For a while now I have judged myself for wondering how long will I take till I never waver from His love and grace? How long will I sing this whining song? How long will it take till I learn and move forward? I don’t know if you have ever felt stuck, like you are in a holding pattern and you just want to stop going back to the same old pains and struggles over and over again. I know it is how I feel all the time lately. I just want it all to stop. I long for the renewing of the mind. These words feel like a broken record and yet I find comfort in them when I read another Psalm that says:
Ps 70: 5 But I’ve lost it, I’m wasted God – quickly, quickly! Quick to me side, quick to my rescue! God, don’t lose a minute.
Ps 77:4-6 I’m awake all night -not a wink of sleep; I can’t even say what’s bothering me. I go over the days one by one, I ponder the years gone by. I strum my lute all through the night, wondering how to get my life together.”
So, there is a small comfort in the reminder that if it was so easy to move forward, there would simply be one Psalm and not over 100 of them. The reality is that just as much as our human nature needs to hear things over and over again, we often do need to keep realising it is a journey and it takes time for restoration and re-storying.
I took small comfort in the fact that there is something powerful about not feeling alone. But today I was struck by the fear there is something dangerous about staying there. Many of the Psalms start in pain, but they don’t stay there. I realised that I had to stop myself from quickly moving over the “hopeful positive” statements to seek another verse where the Psalmist was crying out for help. I was reminded that is it maybe more important where you end, rather than where you start. It Is okay to plead, whine, cry out, demand help, acknowledge pain and struggles as long as you don’t stay there. And this is where possibly when the learning occurs. I must stop berating myself about why I am I still sad and lonely and change the destructive self-talk of “when are you going to learn, Tammy?” to asking different questions like:
Am I still in the same place I was three years ago?
Are my dark days as dark as they used to be?
When I am struck by pain, do I stay in the darkness as long as I used to?
When it hurts deeply and I feel the pain, do I stay there, or do I move through it?
Is my focus on the pain or the promise of hope that comes on the other side?
When my answers to these questions are “no” then I am learning and growing and changing, be it ever more slowly than I would hope for. When my desire is to focus on the hope more than the pain, I am heading in the right direction and it is all He asks for. I am challenged to “be still” and ponder the way each Psalm ends rather than my focus staying on the way it begins. While many of the Psalms begin with pleading and begging for God to help, they always end with:
Ps 57:11. “Soar high in the skies, O God! Cover the whole earth with your glory”
Ps 64:10 “Be glad, good people! Fly to God! Good-hearted people, make praise your habit”.
Ps 86:17. “As you, God gently and powerfully put me back on my feet”.
Ps 102:28 “Your servants’ children will have a good place to live and their children will be at home with you”
Ps 130:7 “…With God’s arrival comes love, with God’s arrival comes generous redemption”
Ps 142:7. “….your people will form a circle around me and you’ll bring me showers of blessing!”
Lord, I continue to pray for your strength daily, to keep my focus on your message of hope, love and grace. Help me to learn more about that each day and to learn that "to sing your praises is enough".
