Category: Praying with the Psalmists

My small group is going through a wonderful book on Joy, Champagne for the Soul, by Mike Mason. I love the book, I love focusing on Joy, and I love the discussions we’re having in our group.

However, something I read yesterday hit me wrong. He was talking about Joy as a sacrifice – sacrificing whatever it is that gets in the way of Joy, whether anger or pride or complaining.

The psalmist knew how to shake free of trouble with a psalm. That’s what the psalms are – sacrifices of joy. David knew God’s pleasure is not in dead animals or rituals but in what happens in the human heart. If the heart doesn’t engage joyfully in worship, or at least emerge from worship rejoicing, then the sacrifice is incomplete. The ultimate sacrifice we can offer the Lord is the sacrifice of joy.

Many of the psalms begin in joy, and those that don’t start on a high note usually end that way. As the psalmist enters the presence of God, no matter how burdened he may be, there’s a movement from negative to positive. The heart lifts as all that weighs it down is sacrificed….

For the person committed to joy, so many roads are no longer open – scorn, impatience, complaining, criticism. When all such easy and habitual options are cut off, a wonderful clarification takes place in th spirit. The dross settles out, leaving room only for the gold of joy.

Joy is the ultimate sacrifice.

Why did those lines hit me the wrong way?

Well, first let me say that we’ve all known people who kill the joy of everyone around them with their complaining. I’m not saying that negative emotions are good things. I also agree that the Psalms move from negative to positive.

But I don’t like the term “sacrifice” used about those negative emotions. It’s not like you cut them off and you’re not allowed to feel them. It’s not a matter of squelching them and refusing to feel them. The psalmists literally say “I pour out my complaint”! They go into great detail about their problems – that’s part of the process.

So maybe that can be thought of as sacrifice if you make an effort to pour out the complaints to God instead of the people around you. But you don’t give up feeling bad, because you’re still human.

Now, with all that in mind, something that’s hurting my Joy these days is worrying about the election. So why don’t I model the Lament process by writing a Lament for the Election? Now, I already did one in my personal journal, and I think for public consumption, I won’t write out ALL my worries. But a Lament really does help you move from negative to positive – not because of “sacrificing” the negative emotions, but because of acknowledging them and bringing them to God.

Here are the parts of a Lament:
Address to God
Complaint
Confession of Trust
Entreaty
Sureness of Help
Subsequent Praise

So, here’s a sample Lament for the Election:

Lord, I come before you
to bring you my worries and fears.
Hear my prayer,
listen to my voice.

Father, I’m afraid of what could happen,
I’m worried about the future.
Especially if the guy should win who talks about
taking rights from transgender people like my daughter
and demonizing the vulnerable among us
and taking away citizenship from people who thought they had it
and deporting people who get our food to market
and depriving women of rights over their own bodies
and trying to stop people from reading books they don’t agree with
and threatening to imprison librarians like me who make those books available
and so much more.

And if he doesn’t win,
I’m worried about unrest and violence
and accusations of cheating
and disregard for the law.
I’m worried about people in power
who will try to further those outcomes.

But Lord, I do trust you.
Bad things happen,
but you always bring good out of it,
at the very least rousing people to stand up for what’s right.

You’ve given us free will,
but you also direct our steps.
I see so many people standing up for the good,
for the rights of the poor and oppressed,
for joy and hope.

Rise up, O Lord!
Send your guidance to people throughout this country.
Help people to listen to your voice,
listen to angels nudging them
even listen to their own better nature.

Let any attempts to cheat
come to light and be thwarted.
Let any violence
be stopped before it can erupt.

I do believe that your Spirit guides us, Lord.
I do believe that you are moving.

I look forward to the day after the election
when we can rejoice
because Joy and Hope have triumphed,
because we’ve elected a president
who will work to do right by the people of America.
And we will be glad!

I didn’t put names in this Lament. So honestly, if you really feel differently from me about who would try to do evil and who would work to do good, you can pray that. May we listen to God’s guidance as we vote.

And people tell me I shouldn’t let my hopes get too high. We’ve all been burned before. But part of the Lament form is visualizing how filled with joy you’ll be when God answers your prayer – and I’d rather go there.

When I say “small” disasters in the title, I really do mean small. Nothing life-threatening. But you know how after a series of things go wrong, you start to expect things to go wrong? I want to do some resetting and remember that I trust God to protect me from actual disasters.

Let me grumble first about the series of small disasters.

It began over a year ago in the middle of the night when I heard a crash that I honestly thought was something crashing through the wall of my house. It turned out to be that a closet shelf had collapsed, with too much weight on one side, it had ripped out of the wall. Or that’s what I thought was the problem. I eventually moved all my clothes out of that closet, unsure what to do.

A couple weeks later, I stepped into my bathroom on a Saturday morning — into a puddle of water. There was water dripping from my ceiling. Long story short, it was from a leak behind the shower in the condo above me — and it was also going into that very same closet. The shelf had probably given way because the wall was wet. The good part was that I’d already taken almost all my clothes out. And my insurance gave me a new bathroom (they’d torn down the ceiling) and put the closet shelf back up. Of course, I had to reorganize everything in both my closets so as not to put so much weight on the shelf. And pay the $500 deductible.

The next water adventure was about a month later – when a storm with wind in an unusual direction had water pouring into my bedroom from the window. And water dripping in from my office window. I ended up getting new windows for both those rooms for thousands of dollars.

And the rest of the mini-disasters were mostly financial. Was told I needed two new dental crowns, $600 each. Switched from a CPAP machine to a dental device for $900. Need new glasses $700. (I know, I should have found a way to get them cheaper, but they’re progressives.) And there was more that I’ve forgotten.

Then there were the medical things. Got hit with vertigo that sent me to the hospital to be sure it wasn’t another stroke. It wasn’t, but the dizziness lasted two months. My eye disease (Fuch’s Dystrophy) has gotten worse, and I may need surgery. I was diagnosed with prediabetes. My blood pressure is high. My two big toenails have been messed up since I went on a super steep hike in Maui a year and a half ago, and I was told they need to come off so that the new nails will grow in correctly. Turns out, that hurts. Will they heal in time to do lots of hiking on my upcoming trip?

They’re all stupid little things — but if I don’t pay attention, they can all build up to worrying and fretting.

I’m going to go on a 60th birthday trip to Germany next week, and it’s easy to fret about details for that, too.

So I want to pause, take a deep breath, and pray a psalm of Trust.

I have written a book about Psalms (still seeking a publisher) and the key concepts in Psalms of Trust are:

• Trust
• Refuge
• No Fear
• Vindication
• Guidance
• Deliverance
• Faithfulness

So let me pray one now. As always, I offer these examples partly to encourage people that they don’t have to be very good! I think I’ll use Psalm 27 as my model.

A Psalm for Carrying On after Small Disasters

Lord, you are my castle –
Why should I worry?
You are my provision –
Why should I fret?

When my plans crumble before my eyes,
when the walls of my home don’t do their job,
you give me strength to deal with it,
help to carry on.
You bring the right professionals into my path
and supply what I need.

Father, I didn’t want to deal with those things;
my first reaction is always catastrophic,
but again and again, you bring me through.
You help me take the problem piece by piece
and come to a solution.

Lord, I trust you.
Your love and faithfulness are eternal.
I’ve come through disasters before,
and you’re not going to abandon me now.

I don’t want to be thinking about the difficult details –
those will all get taken care of.
Help me see past them to the joy
of blooming irises,
of a great blue heron,
of silly posing turtles,
of bright blue skies and white puffy clouds.

And a birthday coming up, going back to a place I loved,
reminding me that you have been faithful in my life for sixty years.

Thank you — the disasters are small
because you are big.

I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.

My as-yet-unpublished book, Praying with the Psalmists, is about using patterns from Psalms in your own prayers. I want to make a habit of praying that way, using different types of Psalms.

On Good Friday, before singing in a wonderful cantata in the evening, I walked among the bluebells at Bull Run Regional Park in the afternoon.

So this is a perfect time to write a creation hymn.

Creation Hymns in Psalms use the following key concepts:

• God’s Glory
• God’s Sustaining Care
• God’s Knowledge
• Creation’s Joyful Response

You’ll find them in Psalms 8, 19, 33, 65, 95, 96, 104, 139, and 148.

The key concepts give us an idea of what to talk about. I’m going to write a creation psalm about what a wonderful time I had out in God’s creation.

Lord, I love the bluebells so much,
the first flowers on the forest floor.
Each one has small beauty,
rewarding a zoom lens with a glimpse of perfection.
But the fields together
give sparkles of color as far as the eye can see.

I love the way these flowers are wild,
not cultivated like hothouse plants,
but exuberantly filling every bit of ground
overflowing a space that tree leaves normally shade,
bursting forth before the leaves come back,
proclaiming with their brightness that Spring is on its way.

And you gave me a glorious day to roam the trail,
to stop and stoop to capture one flower’s portrait.
Sunshine streaming through the bare branches,
blue skies shining high above,
air brisk and clear,
a perfect day for a ramble.

And with the cantata choir to come,
songs of your love go through my head.
And can it be that I should gain
an interest in my Savior’s blood?
And can it be?
And can it be?

No humans tend these abundant blossoms,
they fall under your tender care.
And if that is how God clothes the Spring blossoms,
that appear only for a few weeks,
how much more will my Father in heaven
care for my needs?

Lord, it’s hard to worry or fret
when walking the Bluebell Trail.
With the river calmly flowing past,
the small flowers dancing in the breezes,
the brisk air filling my lungs,
the happy children spotting critters,
the sound of birds chirping in the trees high above,
it easy to imagine they’re all singing your praises.
And I can pause my busy life to join in.

That’s the idea. Mind you, I’m partly posting this so you know your own psalms don’t actually have to be very good!

Try it at home! If you’re really brave, post one you’ve written in the comments!

I’ve written a book about Psalms called Praying with the Psalmists: Open Your Heart in Prayer Using Patterns from Psalms.

I’m currently looking for a publisher, and one of the publishers I’m planning to query asks for a list of ways your book challenges assumptions. They want a dozen or more ways. I’ve come up with a disorganized list, and I thought it would be fun to post them while trying to make some kind of order. So enjoy!

Challenging Assumptions in Praying with the Psalmists:

• You might think that Psalms are ancient literature and have no relevance to today, but human emotions are still the same centuries later, and we can learn from Psalms about opening our hearts in prayer.
• If you think the God of the Old Testament is judgmental and angry, it will be good to immerse yourself in studying Psalms, where we see, again and again, that the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and rich in love.
• If you think poetry has to rhyme, you might be surprised to learn about the Hebrew poetry of Psalms, where the form used is mainly parallelism — a form about the content of the lines rather than the sound of the lines, which has been translated beautifully into thousands of languages over time.
• If you think that only gifted writers can write poetry, you may be surprised at how easy it is to copy the parallelism the psalmists used, and how it can slow down your thinking, make you pause, and help you open your heart.
• You may have heard you should follow a formula when you pray such as ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), but the 150 Psalms in the Bible fall into ten different types, and each type has a different form or set of key concepts. There are many ways to pray, and studying Psalms can deepen your prayer life.
• If you’ve been told you should pray specific requests so you will notice when God answers, you will find it interesting that the psalmists go into great detail about their problems, but make their requests to the Lord in generalities, trusting the Lord to figure out the specifics.
• If you think you could never memorize a Psalm because you’re bad at memorizing, you need to know that no one is bad at memorizing Scripture. Memorizing a Psalm might take you longer than someone else, but you got to spend more time with the passage, so how is that bad?
• If you think it’s not okay to question God, take a look at the angry and despairing questions in some of the Psalms.
• You might think Psalms are all about joy and praise, but there are more Laments in the Bible than any other type of Psalm.
• On the other hand, you might think Laments are depressing to read or write, so you may be surprised to learn that along with detailing their troubles, the psalmists who wrote Laments also include a section about trusting God and a section about how they’ll praise God when God answers.
• If you’ve heard that Messianic Psalms all point to Jesus, you may think they are not something we could write today.  Yes, they foreshadow Jesus, but the psalmists who wrote them didn’t necessarily know they were prophesying. The Messianic Psalms make a good model of how we can pray about injustices in society or government.
• If you think the book of Psalms is too long to go through them all or that some Psalms simply aren’t interesting, then you’ll enjoy my 12-week Reading Plan to cover all the Psalms and show how they all fit into ten types.

There!  What do you think?  The publisher who asks for this says it helps them determine how your book gives new views on old questions.  I’m not sure my statements are as “provocative” as what they’re looking for, but I do think they give you a feel for what I’m trying to do with it.  I’ll polish up some more before I send the query, but I think I’ll work with this list.

I’ve written a book called Praying with the Psalmists.

My book is a complete study of Psalms, showing you how you can deepen your prayer life by using patterns from the ten types of Psalms in your own prayers. I illustrate the types of Psalms by telling my own story. But why Psalms?

Why Read Psalms?

Psalms is a book of emotions of humans in relationship with God. Did you know that there are more Laments in the biblical book of Psalms than there are Psalms of Praise? God can handle our emotions, both positive and negative, and you’ll find them all in the Book of Psalms. These emotions are timeless and the Psalms still touch our hearts today. I’ve got a Reading Plan for reading all the Psalms in 12 weeks, reading one type of Psalm each week.

Why Memorize Psalms?

I’ve memorized all 150 Psalms (beginning in childhood, when my parents paid me), and I’ve found that the brain exercise of memorizing a Psalm helps bypass your brain and bring it straight to your heart. Have you ever memorized a piece of music and found that once you memorize it, you can focus on musicality and meaning? “Hiding God’s Word in your heart” by memorizing a Psalm will help you feel the meaning of that Psalm all the more powerfully. (If you don’t believe me, try it!) I’ve got a chapter with some tips on memorizing Scripture in my book.

Why Study Psalms?

Looking deeper at Psalms, you can see the patterns the Psalmists used — and use them in your own prayers. This is the ultimate goal of my book: To give you another tool to use in prayer and to help your prayers reach your heart.

The book is a 12-week study of all 150 Psalms. You’ll read the Psalms of each type, hear how those Psalms touched my life, and see patterns in each type so you can try it yourself.

After all, sometimes you need a Lament.

Where am I in my book journey?

My book is written, and I brought my own small group through it in 2023, with the help of a co-leader.

In 2023, besides working full-time, I was on the Morris Award committee, so that was taking most of my free time. I did send the book out to some agents. But the feedback I got was that I need to grow my platform before I would get enough interest for an agent or large publisher.

So, in 2024, I’m going to try to grow my platform, as well as try some small publishers. If all else fails, I may decide to self-publish.

How can you help?

You can help my platform grow by subscribing to this blog. I’m going to try to post something about Psalms at least once a month. And I’ll post updates about my book journey. This is my personal blog, so if I find other pressing topics about faith or my life, this is where I put them. You can find out about everything else in my website on my About page.

Why Psalms?

Because if you give them the chance, Psalms will touch your heart.

Last week, my friend Darlene and I traveled to California for our friend Ruth’s 60th birthday. It was a lovely trip. We had a great time together.

But Ruth has early-onset Alzheimer’s, and I am all torn up inside about it.

Explanation for this post: I have written a book, Praying with the Psalmists: Open Your Heart to God Using Patterns from Psalms in Your Prayers. This book is not yet published. But the premise is that we can use patterns from Psalms in prayer to open our hearts to God when things trouble us.

The book may or may not ever get published, but I’m trying to model praying with the psalmists in my own prayers when things are heavy on my heart. [You can follow along with the blog series “Praying with the Psalmists.”] At this time, Alzheimer’s is so heavy on my heart.

At first, I thought I’d write a lament, as I did in “Lament for Leukemia.” But despite the situation, Laments generally are more for prayer requests — bad situations where you are asking God to come through. My friend’s Alzheimer’s is a horrible situation out there in the world, and I can’t help wondering how God allows it. Why is this happening to someone who loves God? I just hate it. So this is a situation for a Wisdom Psalm.

Now, the trouble with writing a wisdom psalm myself is that I don’t particularly think I have wisdom. So I think of the ones we laypeople write as Pep Talk Psalms — reminding ourselves what we know about God, reminding ourselves that it’s worth it to follow God, reminding ourselves that we actually do trust God. Some Wisdom Psalms in Scripture that I love are Psalm 1, Psalm 34, Psalm 37, and Psalm 73.

In my book, I cover five key concepts from the biblical Wisdom Psalms: Blessings, Teachings, Consequences, Oversight, and Perspective. But maybe you’ll get the idea from the example and the biblical examples. I’m going to attempt to use parallelism and dive in and write a psalm about this. I’m going to start with the situation, but then remind myself what I know.

A Psalm for Alzheimer’s

Father, I hate Alzheimer’s
with every fiber of my being.

First, my mother had it,
starting in her early sixties.
It started kind of cute:
holding hands with Dad in new situations,
not understanding mirrors,
proud of getting a puzzle piece in,
telling my Dad they should get married.

But every time I saw her,
she was much worse than the time before.
I just got a memory on Facebook about the time
more than a year before her death,
already on hospice,
when she fell out of her wheelchair
broke her nose, cut her forehead,
and had to remain bedridden
for the last year of her life.

When I saw her two months before her death
at my Dad’s funeral,
she couldn’t talk,
couldn’t smile,
couldn’t sit up,
couldn’t feed herself.
People asked if she knew me,
but how would I even know if she did?

I really hate Alzheimer’s.

So now my friend Ruth has it,
about ten years younger than my Mom started.
Yes, she knows me.
Yes, she can still talk,
with a little trouble putting thoughts into words.
Her frequent “Yeah, uh huh…” reminded me so much
of my mother for a while saying constantly “okay… okay…”,
though Ruth is working to engage in conversation
at least in that way.

She’s happy!
She laughs a lot.
Her husband does a wonderful job
of keeping things light,
laughing with her,
making her failings foibles.
She’s got grandbabies nearby,
living in both homes where she spends her time.
She’s not thinking about the future
and what it will hold for her.
She’s enjoying the present.

She did hike with us,
her husband leading her by the hand.
I tried — and failed to get her past the spot
where she needed to put her foot just there —
because she’s not looking at her feet.

We looked at pictures
from junior high and high school.
She knew who people were
(or at least said she did)
when we could get her to look at the TV
where they were showing.

In the old pictures, in every single set
there’d be a picture of Ruth
perched atop a swingset or boulder or castle wall or tree.
She can’t climb any more,
and I hate that.
In fact, she has trouble sitting down
in an ordinary chair.

And I hate it.

I know it’s only going to get worse.
Though Ruth isn’t thinking about that.
She’s enjoying her husband’s care,
her children and grandchildren,
and wherever she finds herself.
She enjoyed our visit,
and I’m so glad we got to be there for her.

But I hate Alzheimer’s.

[Crying break.]
Lord, why did this have to happen
to someone so vibrant, so alive,
so sharp, so kind,
so always full of mischief,
always literally climbing on boundaries?

Now I’m home,
no longer putting on a brave face so Ruth won’t see my distress,
and my 7-year-old niece is getting
a stem cell transplant for leukemia.
A high school friend’s husband, a pastor,
just passed away from a brain tumor.
Thousands of innocents were recently murdered
in terror and war, both Israelis and Palestinians.

And, Lord, it all seems so hard.

But whom have I in heaven but you, Lord?
I’m not going to decide you don’t exist
because terrible things happen in the world.
I’m not God,
and that’s a good thing.
But I don’t understand.
And that’s okay. I’m human.

What do I believe?
I believe you bring good even out of terrible things.
I believe that mankind is fallen,
but that you redeem.

I believe that my mother is in heaven now,
and all her suffering is not even worth comparing to the glory she now faces.

I believe that my father shone so brightly while he cared for her,
as Ruth’s husband is beginning to shine now.
[I still don’t think it even comes close to outweighing the evil of Alzheimer’s,
but, yes, good comes out of it.]

I believe that because Alzheimer’s and leukemia exist,
humans are exercising their ingenuity and brilliance
and discovering cures.
The stem cell transplant is a much simpler process
than the old bone marrow transplant.
Immunotherapy shows great promise
for many kinds of cancer,
and research for Alzheimer’s treatments
is making great strides.
We have come so far in medical science!
May it continue, may lives continue to be saved and prolonged.

And Lord, above all,
I believe you are with us.
You became a human,
Emmanuel, God with us.
You took up our infirmities
and carried our diseases.
I believe you know our suffering
and carry us.

Sometimes you calm the storm
and sometimes you guide us through the storm.
You love Ruth, your precious child.

Thank you for her life,
thank you for her friendship,
thank you for her laughter,
thank you for her love.
Thank you that you are always with her.
Thank you that she’s been my friend
for almost 50 years.

Thank you that despite awful things,
there is still joy in this world.

Thank you that we were able to bring some of that joy
to our friend Ruth.

Grant her husband and children
grace and perseverance.
Be with them all on the journey that follows.
But thank you that Ruth herself is living in the moment,
still trusting you.

And you are faithful.

Okay. That’s my psalm. I think it helped. The fact is, I still believe that God is good. I don’t claim to know higher meaning for Alzheimer’s. But I choose to believe that God is good and God is loving. And God brings good out of even this.

Hey, anyone reading this — I’d love it if you tried writing your own psalms, too. You can tell by my example that they don’t have to be very good! But use the comments if you want to share.

Last week, I wrote a Lament for a Leak. This week I got much worse news, so it’s time to write a Lament for Leukemia. Except wait — I already wrote a Lament for Leukemia.

Yes, this is about my same niece, Meredith. Now she’s seven years old, and she’s still dealing with leukemia.

I remember the Lament form using the ACCESS acronym:

Address to God
Complaint
Confession of Trust
Entreaty
Sureness of Help
Subsequent Praise

[If you’re interested in reading a book about writing your own psalms, subscribe to this blog or to my Sondermusings substack, and I will definitely let you know if/when I find a publisher. You’ll also find out some things along the way. Let me encourage you to try the lament form and post your own examples in the comments.]

For now, another lament for leukemia:

[Address to God]
Lord, we don’t know where to turn
and so we turn to You.
You love us and care for us,
you hear prayer,
but we don’t understand
how children can suffer so much
in this world you’ve made.

[Complaint]
Meredith was in remission!
She did so well with immunotherapy!
No side effects!
Out of the hospital on the first possible day!

Our hopes were high.
Our hearts lifted to see her
dancing ballet,
learning Parkour.
(Parkour seems to be navigating obstacles with strength and grace —
may she navigate these new obstacles with strength and grace.)

But only a couple weeks later,
her b-cells are back.
The reengineered t-cells are no longer
protecting her from leukemia.

We don’t want to be ungrateful.
Her big sister is a match!
But the stem cell transplant process
is hard,
is risky,
is scary.
And we’d gotten to hoping she could do without it.

Lord, she’s just a kid!
Seven years old, with years of painful and uncomfortable treatments
behind her.
She was doing activities,
going back to school,
learning new things,
even growing her hair back.
Now it’s time for six more weeks in the hospital (at least).

[Confession of Trust]
Lord, we know that you do see trouble and grief.
You consider it to take it in hand.
You will be with your children
every step of the way.

[Entreaty]
Lord, have mercy!
Grant Meredith health and healing.
Uphold her family.
Grant them all grace and peace.

Give her sister peace and rest
as she donates her stem cells,
and transform her blood into
healing and salvation for Meredith.

Lord, we don’t even understand fully how it works,
but turn her sister’s blood into good medicine
that gives Meredith new health and new life
and many years of thriving.

[Sureness of Help]
Thank you, Lord, that you do hear our prayers.
Thank you for the amazing developments in medicine
that have produced this cure for leukemia.
Thank you that you have been with this family for years already
and you’re not abandoning them now.

[Subsequent Praise]
Lord, help us dare to celebrate again
when the stem cells do their work.
Let us look forward to the day
when her blood has been renewed
and she is cured.
We look forward to singing for joy
at the healing you bring.

I’m upset over something that happened yesterday. And I feel stupid for being so upset. The something is that in a rainstorm, I discovered my bedroom window is leaking badly. My office window is also leaking.

I feel like that shouldn’t upset me so much — and then my mind keeps spinning over reasons why it does.

And that gets me thinking about Psalms.

You see, I recently finished writing a book about Psalms, Praying with the Psalmists. I don’t yet have a publisher, but my premise is that you can use the patterns from Psalms to write your own prayers.

And I want to try a Lament for this Leak. I think it will help me calm down my catastrophic thinking.

I learned when studying Psalms that God wants our honesty. The psalmists seem somewhat extreme in their complaints. So if I’m extreme in what I worry about regarding this stupid leak — well, that’s okay. God can handle it.

I’ll use parallelism, and I’ll use the ACCESS form of a Lament:

Address to God
Complaint
Confession of Trust
Entreaty
Sureness of Help
Subsequent Praise

Here goes! I’m going to sit down and write this now and try not to edit it too much. This is my prayer.

[Address to God]
Lord, I’m coming to you about this leak,
I’m telling you my worries and fears
because I want to trust that you care about me;
I want to believe that you listen to my concerns.

This one seems too petty for you, God.
I’m a grown-up, shouldn’t I deal with it?
But let me come to you like a child
because as a father has compassion on his children
so you have compassion on those who follow you.

A situation like this makes me miss my father,
miss someone to turn to,
miss not having to be the most responsible one.
So it’s time to turn to You, Father.

[Complaint]
It’s just a window!
But I’ve been afraid of this.

When my air conditioner went out and pulled me back into debt,
my friend said, “What’s *really* expensive are windows.”
Just a couple years ago, our condo association sent out a notice:
Replacing windows is now the responsibility of the homeowner.
Because they’re all getting old,
and the association can’t afford to replace them all.
They had us vote on it,
but what could I do?
We don’t want our fees to go up,
but neither do I want the expense.
Had a feeling it would be relevant,
but hoped I was just superstitious.

Many months ago, I noticed a leak
in the window in my office.
But it didn’t happen again
until yesterday.
I’d hoped it was a fluke.

For the same months, I’ve been noticing a wet, rotting wood smell
near the window in my bedroom
every time it rains.
But never saw any water.
Maybe I’m imagining it?
After all, if I don’t actually see a leak,
how could it actually be there?

Then yesterday it was spitting out.
My head got sprinkled when I ducked in to see where it was coming from.

The rug was wet next to my bed.
Then I saw splashes on the things under the window.
I moved those things next to the piles
removed from my closet months ago.
I got a step ladder and found the water was coming
from the wooden casing above the window.
The paint is cracked, and water was coming out
randomly all in a line,
all along the top of the window,
falling all the way down
not in a stream I could catch in a bowl,
but spreading out and spraying.

I put down plastic,
wiped it down.
The office window was leaking too.
(Usually wind drives rain the other direction
— that’s the one good side.)

Four months ago, a bathroom leak from the condo above me
destroyed my master bathroom and closet.
I still haven’t returned everything to the closet,
trying to sort through the boxes of books.
I’ve only just recently finished cleaning the dust
from the reconstruction.
I still haven’t gotten back
the $500 deductible,
because the problem didn’t originate within my unit.

So I don’t want another project.
I haven’t put my house back together after the last one!
Problems are supposed to wait their turn!
Aren’t they?

And money!
Ten years ago, my Dad gave me the down payment to buy this place.
A few years later, a home equity loan allowed me to pay off
heavy debt from my divorce.

Then the water heater broke…
then the air conditioner…
and always, God provided.

In a few months, I’ll have my car paid off,
and I was already daydreaming about saving little by little
to buy one more car – without payments –
before I retire.

I’d got it in my head that at last I’d go back to visit Germany
where I lived for ten years,
but haven’t seen for eighteen years.
I’d go next June for my sixtieth birthday.
What better way to celebrate?

Now I feel like who am I
to dare to plan for something special like that?
Who am I to think
I can be out of debt for more than a few months at a time?

And, Lord, I know it’s so childish!
It’s expensive to own a home.
My condo already saved my financial situation.
At worst, surely I can get a home equity loan.
But I’m still complaining!
This is the part about all the thoughts going through my head:

How dare I think I can have nice things?
I’m on the Morris committee!
How can I possibly find time to have people come through my home
open up a wall
rip things apart
and put in a new window?
And how will I ever find time to clean up after?
Why can’t I just ignore the problem
and hope the wind won’t blow that direction with rain ever again?

And where do I start?
Who do I call?
(The condo association.
Maybe they can tell me where to get windows that match.)

Okay, that’s the start of my complaint, Lord!
It’s a big mess of money and time that I for sure
do not want to spend right now.

It childishly doesn’t seem fair
when I haven’t even put things back together after the other leak.

It all seemed like more when I was stewing.
But those are my complaints, Lord.
I’m not looking forward to dealing with it.
I’m not looking forward to paying for it.
I’m not looking forward to having people fix it.
I’m not looking forward to moving my furniture to make it happen.
I’m not looking forward to the disruption of folks working on it.
I’m not looking forward to cleaning up after it.

And I keep hoping the problem is just a fluke,
but yesterday was enough water
that I think the time for ignoring the problem
is long past.

[Confession of Trust]
Lord, thank you that writing all that out
isn’t nearly as bad as what was spinning in my head.
Thank you for this home
and how it solved my credit card debt.
Thank you that you provided
after all the other repairs and after dental crises and other unexpected expenses.
Thank you for that $3000 award that came
exactly when I was $3000 in debt.

Father, by now I should have learned that you can meet my needs.
And you help me deal with things I don’t want to deal with.
And you help me find professionals who know what they’re doing.
And I can really do this Grown-up stuff!

And yes, I can trust you, Lord.
And no, this isn’t a disaster.
And yes, I have so many resources
and should probably be ashamed for how upset this got me.
Because you will be with me, Lord,
as you have been with me before.

[Entreaty]
Lord, be with me
as you have promised!
Grant me wisdom
to figure out who to call,
to find trustworthy professionals,
who quote me a good price.
If I need a home equity loan to pay for it,
help me through that process, too.
Make me thankful for my cozy and beautiful home
as I invest in it something in return
for the shelter it has provided to me.

Be with me in this process, Lord.
May it not cost as much money and time
as I fear.
And provide for my needs,
as you always do.
Help me not to fret;
eliminate my disaster thinking,
and grant me grace as I carry on.

[Sureness of Help]
Lord, already I feel more calm.
I know that you see me
and you will help me
and you keep me from disaster.

[Subsequent Praise]
When it’s all done,
when I have brand-new windows
with a lovely new window treatment
(because why not?)
and my house put back together —

It’s time for me to have a party
and tell my friends:
I was so worried about this;
I felt sorry for myself dealing with it on my own,
but the Lord helped me through.

Okay, that’s my psalm of lament.

It’s childish, it’s silly. I’m making a fuss over something people deal with all the time.

But you know what? I feel better after writing that. More equipped to figure out what needs to be done, and not panic about what it will take to do it.

For you, reader, it’s not that I want to make you listen to all my petty worries. It’s that I want to share that we all have petty worries. And yes, we can pray about them! And for me, the Lament form really helps.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.