Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Write Your Own Psalm, Day Two - Lament

If the first eight verses of Psalm 31 establish God as our Safe Place, the next five take advantage of that fact. David pours out very raw feelings of lament, and really lets God know how he's feeling. Take time to read through verses 9-13 if you haven't already. In fact, even if you have read them, doing it again wouldn't be a bad idea.
You may recall that when I was reading through Psalm 31 I just wanted to get out of these verses of lament. But God used my time there (and the wise words of my mentor) to show me that I needed to be open to the pain and allow Him to love me through it - rather than to run away from it. So I spent a few days in lament when I wrote my psalm, and I am inviting you to do the same thing.
I am not going to share everything I wrote in this portion of my psalm. Partly because I don't want to influence your writing - I want to leave that up to God! And, partly, because I got real honest with God as I wrote and some of it is just too personal. You still love me, don't you?
So, on this first day of lament I started like this:

Have mercy on me, Lord, for my heart is bruised, and it hurts when certain thoughts touch it.
When I think of...it hurts.
When I think of...it hurts.
When I wonder if...it hurts.
And I continued on with God, pouring out my heart about past things which still affect me today.
Before you begin writing today, spend time in prayer with the Lover of you soul. Ask God what He wants you to bring out. Ask Him to bring to mind anything that you have kept closed off in your past. Don't look for solutions to the problems, just be honest about your feelings - remembering that God is your Safe Place and He can handle anything you have to say.
Come back tomorrow to write some more.

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3 comments:

luvmy4sons said...

Beautiful dear friend. It is my hope when God starts some healing in me over recent events that I too can put it to words. It is too raw at the moment.

Ronel said...

Wow, this is going to be a powerful writing day. I will let you know how it goes.

Blessings!!

Larie Carlice Proverbs 27:19 said...

I'm late with this comment. I tried to comment yesterday but it wasn't working for some reason.

I did, however, post for day two on time.

Just wanted to let you know I'm still with ya girl!

smooches,
Larie