Psalm 38: 6-15
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.
12 Those who want to kill me set their traps,
those who would harm me talk of my ruin;
all day long they scheme and lie. 13 I am like the deaf, who cannot hear,
like the mute, who cannot speak;
14 I have become like one who does not hear,
whose mouth can offer no reply.
15 Lord, I wait for you;
you will answer, Lord my God.
Psalms 38 is probably one of my favorite, if not my favorite Psalm. This Psalm has gotten me through the hardest times of my Christian walk.
I remember when I made the decision to follow Jesus. I was trying to move past the abuse I experienced by a person that was not a part of my family in any way. But none of the less, was able to build a good relationship with my family. After seeking the Lord deeply in prayer, I really felt like I was supposed to release this person and forgive them. So I did, I reached out and expressed the forgiveness.. Needless to say, their response was heartbreaking.. What do you do when the person you forgive rips you apart and makes you feel as if you were the one that deserved everything they did to you? The person wrote me a letter expressing such hatred and anger.. Crazy thing is, it was like I couldn’t feel, I couldn’t speak, I just knew that my heart-felt as if it was ripped from my chest and trampled…
“was I making this up? Did I remember wrong? Maybe they never did this to me. Maybe I deserved it..” Bounced throughout my mind, I felt so alone. There were persons in my life who knew the situation and stood alongside me, but it’s different when you’re really fighting against the enemy in your mirror.. I heard a soft voice speak to my heart and said, “start walking” As I walked I cried and cried, it felt as if the world around me disappeared as my heart quickened as the sorrow consumed me. The Lord once again spoke to my heart and said “Everything is going to be alright.”. A friend of mine came and prayed for me and prayed for the person… Though I didn’t have the strength or words to express the anguish in my heart God knew.. He brought someone to me to hold me up at my weakest moment… Kind of like when the people of Israel were in battle, and as long as Moses had the staff lifted Israel would prevail. But, Moses became weak so his brother and sister came a long side him and lifted his arms.
Exodus 17:12 When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up–one on one side, one on the other–so that his hands remained steady till sunset.
It was like in that moment, my life caved in… But God knew my heart, He knew that more than anything, I wanted to be free from this. I didn’t want to pretend that what happened was okay, I just wanted to move on. You see unforgiveness, as I’m sure I said before in one of my post, is like a cancer that spreads throughout the body and with time is the death of you. It oozes into your everyday life and impacts the lives of the people around you in such a negative way. It affects your job, your relationships, your family… Everything and everyone who knows and loves you. Most of all, it pushes you to a place of loneliness. Through that, I was able to find peace and freedom unlike anything I could have ever imagined…
In the end, the person wrote another letter apologising..
Jesus has a beautiful way of turning our sorrow into the thing that propels us into someone greater… IF we let Him! There is no chain God’s love can’t break.