A Psalm of Lament

Where are you, Lord? I search for you, but I cannot find you—and yet, you are here, always here with me, never leaving me nor forsaking me. Why can you be so distant, light years away, but your very breath in and through me and all around me? I long to finally see you with my eyes, especially when the eyes of my faith sometimes grow dim. You are as elusive as smoke curling up into the night sky or water slipping through my fingers into dry earth, yet your presence is as sure as the ground beneath my feet and the stars above my head. I know that one day we will be together, but this liminal space in which I find myself, neither certain that you are here nor uncertain that you are not, sometimes breaks my strength, leaving me in such a weakened state—broken by your absence, comforted by your presence.

When I lay my head on the pillow at night—my face dampened with the nighttime dew—I am one day closer to leaving those I love; when I awake in the morning, I awaken to the brightness of the light and the hope of another day—one more day to spend with those I love. When I lay my head on the pillow, my life overcome in the roar of your surf, I long to be home with you; when I awake in the morning, I awaken to being twenty-four hours closer to seeing your kind and gentle face. Maybe you put us in these wine presses of sorrow and longing—at least allowing us to be in these terrifying, liminal spaces, of not knowing your love in the frailty of our flesh, yet knowing the unsearchable reaches of your love because your love comes to us borne on the wind of your Spirit. I go to sleep with the sorrow and tears of another day’s last light shed; I awaken to another day of the first light of your face, safeguarding another day for me to live—this day, and each day, a gift of your grace. I am grateful that I was able to live today.

2 Corinthians 4:17–18

For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us
an eternal weight of glory
far beyond all comparison,
while we look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen;
for the things which are seen are temporal,
but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Psalm 42

For the music director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.

As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

I remember these things and pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go over with the multitude and walk them to the house of God,
With a voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude celebrating a festival.

Why are you in despair, my soul?
And why are you restless within me?
Wait for God, for I will again praise Him
For the help of His presence, my God.

My soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have passed over me.

The LORD will send His goodness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life.

I will say to God my rock,
“Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries taunt me,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

Why are you in despair, my soul?
And why are you restless within me?
Wait for God, for I will again praise Him
For the help of His presence, my God.