Psalm 38:1-11

Psalm 38:1-11
  New International Version (NIV)

  1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. 2 Your arrows have pierced me, and your hand has come down on me. 3 Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin. 4 My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.
  5 My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. 6 I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning. 7 My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. 8 I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.
  9 All my longings lie open before you, Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you. 10 My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes. 11 My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds; my neighbors stay far away.

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  Anybody know how this feels?  Have you experienced a pounding heart?  Have you been so deeply wounded that your friends and neighbors avoid you?  Have you felt as though there was no health in your body, and the only thing you could see was darkness?  Do you know this feeling?  Perhaps you have it now.
  There is a prayer for that.

  Our religion is not built on the faulty assumption that all will be well, that if you say your prayers and go to church, then God will bless you with happiness and health.  Christianity is a religion that knows how to rejoice, and it is a religion that also gives us language and the ability to cope with the deepest and darkest valleys of life.  This is real life stuff, and God wants us to have the ability to hold onto faith and hope in the midst of our pain, despair and tradition.  God gives us language with which to pray during these chapters.
  God understands.  God himself has hung on the cross while abandoned by his companions and in deep physical distress.  God knows, and God will neither abandon nor forsake you, even if everyone else in the world does.
  God is neither afraid or nor ashamed of you when you are at your lowest, for when Christ was at his lowest, he was raised to the heights of glory by the power of God.

  You, too, shall be raised.

  May you have the strength to believe that today