{"id":13146,"date":"2022-02-12T19:40:33","date_gmt":"2022-02-12T23:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=13146"},"modified":"2025-08-20T13:36:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T17:36:15","slug":"praying-a-thanksgiving-psalm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=13146","title":{"rendered":"Praying a Thanksgiving Psalm"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m working on a book about Psalms. It’s called Praying with the Psalmists<\/em> and analyzes ten different types of Psalms in the Bible. Then the reader is challenged to use each of these types to write their own psalms and pray their own prayers. And I’m putting in memoir material as I go.<\/p>\n

Several years ago, I wrote the example Thanksgiving psalm<\/a> I was going to use and posted it in this blog. But now that I’m looking at it again, it gives away some events from my life that I wanted to put in the following chapter. So I need to write a new Thanksgiving psalm! Shouldn’t be hard, right? I mean, that’s the whole point of my book. Right?<\/p>\n

The form of Thanksgiving Psalms is praise before and after a Deliverance Account<\/em>. The Deliverance Account<\/em> takes this form:<\/p>\n

I was in trouble. I called. God intervened.<\/em><\/p>\n

I want to do it about something recent, so I’m going to talk about when I left my former church in 2019, and how wonderfully God turned things out.<\/p>\n

I left because my former church decided by an overwhelming majority to vote to include in their church constitution that it’s officially sinful to be LGBTQ. I strongly disagree with that policy and believe it’s falling into the sin of the Pharisees that Jesus condemned in Matthew 23 and makes a heavy load and places it on other people’s shoulders without lifting a finger to help them.<\/p>\n

I was very sad to leave that church, however, because it was full of people I cared about and who cared about me.<\/p>\n

And I would like them to read and use my book, so I will see if I can mention that I left without mentioning why.<\/p>\n

I was also torn about my decision. Was I being judgmental of them for being too judgmental? But time has shown that it was a wonderful decision and I am tremendously happy in my new church. And now I feel like God didn’t just nudge me to where I needed to be — God dragged me there kicking and screaming. But I’m so happy to be there now!<\/p>\n

So let’s put it in a psalm:<\/p>\n

A Thanksgiving Psalm for a Church Home<\/strong><\/p>\n

I will thank you, Lord,
\n with all my heart.
\nYou have answered my longings
\n and filled me with joy.
\nYou have put new songs in my mouth
\n and given me new friends to sing them with.<\/p>\n

I was sad and heartbroken,
\n destitute to leave my church family of years.
\nI had a point of disagreement
\n important to my convictions,
\nfundamentally about ministry,
\n and important to my family.
\nBut how could I leave my home?
\n How could I take a different path
\nfrom the people who’d sustained me
\n through hard times and difficulties?<\/p>\n

I called out to you, Lord.
\n I agonized and prayed.
\nI tried to find a different way.
\n I talked with the elders, the pastor, leaders.
\nBut the more I talked
\n and the more I prayed,
\nthe more I realized it was time for me
\n to look for a new church home.
\nI’d hoped you would lead me otherwise,
\n or intervene and eliminate the need.
\nBut that’s not how things happened,
\n and it was time to visit another church,
\none where I was a stranger
\n and didn’t know anyone,
\nwith no one greeting me by name
\n or looking for me to catch up.<\/p>\n

On my very first visit
\n an amazing coincidence gave me hints
\n I was in the right place.
\nThen someone told me I should join the choir,
\n starting back up at the end of the summer.<\/p>\n

And in the choir,
\n I truly found my new family.
\nSo many meaningful times in my life
\n had been singing to the Lord,
\namong choirs of fellow believers.
\n It was so good to be back!<\/p>\n

Besides the choir,
\n more and more things showed
\nthat you, Lord, brought me
\n to the right place for me.
\nThere’d be a word in a sermon,
\n a song that hit the spot.
\nA small group during the pandemic
\n gave me new connections who cared.
\nNow every week, I lift my voice
\n in praise and wonder to the Lord.<\/p>\n

You, Father, have your hand
\n always in my life.
\nYou’ve brought me to where I belong
\n at this particular time,
\nand I praise you and thank you
\n for knowing what I need
\n so much better than I do.<\/p>\n

Out of the time of pain
\n you, Lord, brought me where I needed to be.
\nAnd looking back, I can’t help but realize
\n that for anything less, I wouldn’t have gone.<\/p>\n

Lord, I will truly praise you in the congregation,
\n in the assembly of the peoples.
\nI will sing your praises every week
\n along with my new family,
\nmy brothers and sisters
\n all lifting our voices together in praise.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m working on a book about Psalms. It’s called Praying with the Psalmists and analyzes ten different types of Psalms in the Bible. Then the reader is challenged to use each of these types to write their own psalms and pray their own prayers. And I’m putting in memoir material as I go. Several years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-praying-with-the-psalmists","category-thanksgiving-psalms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13146"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13152,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13146\/revisions\/13152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}