Many years ago, I went to therapy for an eating disorder. My therapist handed me a music CD filled with songs about eating disorders that was produced by Music for the Soul. She asked me to listen to it so we could talk about it at our next appointment. The next week she asked me what I thought of the CD and I told her it provided me with words that I hadn't had before to express what it was like living with a disorder. From the music, I realized I had developed my disorder as a way of speaking when I didn't know how to express what I needed to be said. I also realized later that it also expressed my heart's desire to fully embrace my Creator's design of me and to learn to live in peace as I saw myself and my life through His eyes. I remember feeling so thankful for the artists and the production team at Music for the Soul for helping me find a way to communicate what was going on so I could find the healing I desperately wanted.
Then this summer our church went through songs of lament form the Psalms. This post would be way too long, if I tried to recap everything I learned about lamenting from our team of pastors. I want to share that as the series is winding down. I have been experiencing the familiar feelings of gratefulness I had experienced when I listened to the CD. I am overwhelmed at the goodness and grace of our great God who at different times in my life provided words for me when I did not have the words to express my experience and overwhelming emotions at a time I most needed to connect with God.
We mostly covered David's Psalms of Lament, in which he articulated feelings of abandonment, sorrow, fear, doubts, despair, and guilt in unfiltered honesty. A good example of this honesty is found in Psalm 13:1-2, "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?"
David's Psalms also contained an element of pleading with God, which I love. Psalm 13:3-4 shows this beautifully. "Consider and answer me, O Lord my God: light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed over him, lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken."
Then David ends his Psalms with a commitment to faith as shown in Psalm 13:5-6, "But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me."
When I look back on my life, especially when it felt hard, I realized what helped me get through it was practicing these three steps of getting radically honest and expressing raw emotion to God, desperately pleading for help and deeper connection to Him, and remembering His faithfulness and previous work in my life.
I have read and used the Psalms during different times of my life. When I experienced fear after I woke up to an intruder I camped on Psalm 4, especially the 8th verse, "In peace, I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone have made me dwell in safety." In times of failure, I have camped on David's words and pleas for forgiveness and freedom from shame. I camped on Psalm 64 and 109 during a time I felt like I was being attacked. Leaning to look in the Scriptures for words helped me learn to engage with my Abba in unfiltered honesty. As I became more honest my questions changed, turning from prideful protests to a humble desire to see God in the middle of the hard stuff.
It is my prayer that every person dealing with a past of victimization can turn to the Psalms to find the honest unfiltered words they need to take their pain and questions to God. It is my prayer that every parent who is hovering over the bed of a child in ICU or NICU or standing over a freshly dug grave would spend time in the Psalms find the words to honestly express their fear, deep longings, and the courage to lean to their faith and into their God. It is my prayer that those facing diagnoses and surgeries and treatments that are harsh on the body will find Words in the Psalm that will help them cry out in radical honesty to the Healer. And it is my prayer that both wounded and fallen soldier's families would find the words to cry out and lean into the Comforter. in their deep grief.
What a grace we have been gifted by our God who gave us a book of Psalms full of words for when there are no words to describe the deep anguish we may feel, the overwhelming fear that may cause us to forget the powerful God we serve, the stinging isolation of feeling forgotten or unseen by the all-knowing, ever-present God, and the overwhelming shame that comes with besetting sin that can only be overcome by abiding in His grace.
