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Shattered Teeth, Shattered Lives


Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint; heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long? Turn, Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love. Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave? I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes. Away from me, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping. The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer. All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish; they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame. (Psalm 6)

          One of the things I love about the Psalms is that the psalmists (particularly David) don’t hold back. They tell God exactly how they’re feeling. Whether they’re screaming “Shatter their teeth!” or crying “How long, LORD, How long?” it’s all right there, in God’s face and ours. They don’t feel the need to apologize for the way they feel, for the size of the thing troubling them, or for bothering God. I also love the fact that the psalmists don’t explain their problems. There are no scales of trauma or pain. God doesn’t have a measuring rod with a mark on it that shows how much pain you must feel or how deep your troubles must be before He stops saying, “Let me correct your perspective” and starts saying, “OK, now your problems qualify for My mercy.”
          I’m starting to read about caregiving. I’m pretty sure I’m doing everything wrong and have been for a long time. I’m making decisions that spend Dad’s money – and I hate it because I’m sure he wouldn’t approve. The first chapter of the book I’m reading focuses on the caregiver, and understanding that the caregiver is a human being, under tons of stress, who needs care, too. One of the stresses, apparently not unique to me, is the struggle to try to do it all ourselves. And it’s…just…not…possible. We need to recognize our rights and our needs to be feel afraid, anxious, angry, overwhelmed, uncertain. Those aren’t signs of failure, they’re signs of humanity.
          God is God. He can handle our crises, our temper tantrums, our cries that there is a monster under the bed. We need to learn to be like the psalmists, laying it all out before Him until we are too exhausted to say or think another word, then staying there until He has spoken peace back into our souls.



         


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