About a year and a half ago, I found myself in the middle of a huge emotional mess.
The "feeling-like-the-world-just exploded-in-my-face" kind of an emotional mess.
The "did-that-really-just-happen" whiplash that had me reeling, and feeling like my heart had been ripped from inside my chest (I told y'all, I feel things pretty intensely) kind of an emotional mess.
The "how-on-earth-will-God-help-me-recover-from-THIS" kind of an emotional mess.
On the days when I actually had enough energy and mental strength to drag myself out of my apartment, go to class, and somehow talk to friends, many would ask me the dreaded "how are you doing?" or "how have you been?" questions.
And, usually, the first part of my answer to that question was, “A little shambly…”
According to Merriam-Webster, to be "in shambles" is to be in a place or in a state in which there is great confusion, chaos, disorder or destruction.
AKA: a state of messiness. Storminess.
Shambles.
Mess.
Great confusion.
Disorder.
This was me for a very, very, long time. And truthfully, I had NO idea how God was going to restore me, my identity, the image I had of myself...all of it.
I often felt all out of sorts, disordered, chaotic, like I had to run around all over the place, and like I didn't have enough...
Not enough time to do what I need to and what I want to.
Not enough energy.
Not enough emotional or mental capacity.
Not enough for others.
Not enough for myself.
Not enough for God.
Not enough in general.
Not enough ___________.
Have you ever, even for just a moment, felt like this? If so, then I want you to know something very, very important.
THERE. IS. HOPE.
What I came to see during that time of inner turmoil is that God has given us something to show us just how much He understands the entirety of the human emotional experience. It's called the Psalms, the longest book in the Bible, and it's one that my highlighters and pens have had numerous opportunities to color and annotate.
In 2017, I read through the Psalms like I had never read it before, and I ended up reading it in its entirety, twice.
While I was reading, I found several chapters and verses to be prayers. These are prayers that can be shouted, screamed, and literally cried out when the weight of the world and the problems we face in life just get too freaking hard for us to carry any more on our own.
And in my life, these have been prayers that I have clung to fiercely, and I still cling to them because of the HOPE they give me.
The fact that these prayers exist in the Bible has shown me just how acceptable it is to wrestle with the kind of turbulent, raw, and difficult emotions as the writer of the Psalms did all those years ago - and still be seeking after God, in the presence of God, being loved by God, and being cared for and carried by God at the same time.
These prayers, these heart-cries of desperation are saturated and ringing with hurt, aching, longing, sorrow, despair, frustration, and other deeply painful emotions. They remind me of how even in the midst of our deepest struggles and darkest pain, God STILL provides for us. Period.
In these scriptures, God has provided for us words to use when we can't come up with our own because our heads and our hearts are just too heavy from what we've been going through.
God has provided us with a way to talk to and with Him, a way to use His own Word given to us, His children, to speak over ourselves as declarations, and to pray over ourselves when we need to be reminded of God’s character and consistency in the midst of our own chaos.
These are prayers that other people have prayed when they have come to the end of themselves, much like I have. Crying out to God, desperate to see him move, and when they were questioning His faithfulness and goodness, the Psalms, usually and mostly attributed to King David, show how we can be living for God, following after His heart, seeking after His Kingdom, and still experience times of great distress, anger, sorrow, depression, aching, and frustration.
Experiencing those things makes us HUMAN, and it's high time that Christians stop shaming other Christians for this. It's high time HUMANITY stops shaming itself from experiencing these intense emotions.
When people find themselves living through incredibly difficult circumstances they have no control over, still experience or carry around wounds from their past that they often wish could be simply "prayed away" (even when they know that's NOT how things work with God), or when their struggle is acutely intense, rollercoaster-like, and lasts for years, like mine did, I believe that these Psalms exist SO THAT people see that they have the freedom to pray them with the same kind of emotions that were felt by those who wrote them.
These prayers can be found in:
- Psalm 3
- Psalm 13
- Psalm 17
- Psalm 19:12-14
- Psalm 22 super (super powerful)
- Psalm 25
- Psalm 27:7-11 (this is a good one to scream)
- Psalm 28:1-2
- Psalm 31:1-6, 9-21
- Psalm 38:9-15, 17-21
- Psalm 40:1-3, 11-13, 17
(this is a promise/declaration you can say over your life in this way – I will wait patiently for you to help me, God: for I know you will listen and hear me, I know you will hear my cry, etc.)
- Psalm 42:4-11
- Psalm 43:5
- Psalm 44:23-26
- Psalm 51
- Psalm 55:1-2, 4-8, 16-19
- Psalm 57:1-3
- Psalm 59:16
- Psalm 61
- Psalm 66:10-20
- Psalm 70
- Psalm 73:17-28
- Psalm 74:1-2, 19-22
- Psalm 77:1-13
- Psalm 80:3-19
- Psalm 86:1-6, 11-17
- Psalm 88:6-9, 13
- Psalm 89:46-52
- Psalm 90:12-17
- Psalm 91
- Psalm 94:14, 16-19
- Psalm 101:2-3
- Psalm 102 and 103
- Psalm 105 (not necessarily a prayer but a good one to read if you’re struggling with remembering God's faithfulness.)
- Psalm 107:3-7, 9, 29, 35-38, 41-43
- Psalm 109:21-28
- Psalm 116
- Psalm 118:5-9
- ALL of Psalm 119
- Psalm 121
- Psalm 126:5-6
- Psalm 139:23
- Psalm 141:1-2
- Psalm 142
- Psalm 145:14-20
So, what am I getting at here? I didn’t just list a bunch of places in Psalms with heartfelt prayers for no reason, so bear with me.
Jesus said in John 16:33, “In this life, you will have troubles…”
Yep. Accurate. Very very very very accurate.
"I'm fine I'm everything's fine I dont know why my voice
is coming out all squeaky, 'cause really -
I'm FINE!" - Ross Geller
BUT
- and this is very important to remember here people -
IN THAT SAME sentence, in John 16:33, Jesus also says, “…but take heart, for I have overcome the world!”
And THIS is why the second part of my answer to the questions of “How are you/how have you been?” was “…but God is GOOD.”
This is why I can stillsay that second part of my answer.
Jesus didn’t finish his statement with a “Life’s gonna suck” message. He didn't just say, "In this life, you will have troubles. End of story. So have fun with that BYEEEEEE!"
This is what I think he's saying,
“Hey, life won't be easy, you know life’s not easy, but you won't have to and don’t need to dwell on it because I have overcome whatever troubles you may face today, tomorrow, andin the future. So hope IN me, because whatever you do end up facing in life - I've already defeated it. ”
This is why the second part of my answer to that question of “How are you/how have you been?” has been and will continue to be, “…but God is GOOD.”
I don’t always see it, but I always say it because I want to remind myself of this truth.
And honestly, it can be hard for me to believe that God is for me sometimes and wants the best for me because I've experienced so much in my past that I often find the enemy using all of it against me, screaming at me - "DONT DO IT. DON'T TRUST GOD. REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED THAT TIME?! YOU'RE JUST GONNA GET HURT AGAIN!! DON'T DO IT!!!! DON'T DO IT!!!!!!"
But all of those Psalms remind me that there IS HOPE.
And it is IN the person of JESUS.
The Psalms, time and time again, give me words to pray, and they comfort me by showing me that there were people in situations that were way more extreme than mine probably ever will, but that God still showed up for them.
So, THEREFORE, I can believe, have faith, and KNOW WITH CONFIDENCE that He can, and HE WILL, show up for me, and for you, too, when we experience our own trials, difficulties, heartbreaks, and mistakes.
God is GOOD, y'all. Amen amen!
