My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,    
    and by night, but I find no rest...

For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet --
I can count all my bones --
they stare and gloat over me;
they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots...

    - Excerpts from Psalm 22

1.17.2008
I am on this journey.  It is cold today and the bay windows in my office are drafty and my fingers are cold.  They match my soul today. 

Before I started reading this psalm I took some time to pray, and I prayed for our community and for some friends, for my dad and my job situation, for Brooke.  And I finished and shrugged, telling God: I don’t know if you’ll do anything.  Brooke and I got into an argument last night and I feel the residue of that today, maybe more than the residue.  I still feel it.  I am sure we both carried past hurts into our argument, which means that as I prayed today I felt the past hurts more than the trivial present, and thus I threw up my hands to God, wondering where he is, why he doesn’t simply and immediately heal any wounds I have. 

God doesn’t magically heal my wounds.  When they flare up, when a nerve gets stimulated, I feel them.  I come to a place of frustrated abandonment, wondering why God has not taken the pain away, wondering if he will ever act.  Yet, I have not acted myself.  I expect God to go to a place within me where I am not willing to go. 

I know there are people with real physical wounds in the world and they feel surrounded by dogs, they feel enemies gloating over them.  I fortunately, do not carry physical wounds with me.  But an emotional wound is both more hidden and thus more crippling; we are most alone when we have no one to look at our emotional wounds, first of all ourselves.

This psalm is prophetic and it is not only a reference to David but to Jesus.  It is quoted a couple of times in the New Testament, referring to Jesus’ death.  I find peace in this.  I don’t imagine that Jesus was hampered by emotional wounds, mainly because I believe he perfectly accepted the Father’s love for him, and he made sure that love flushed out frustrations and temptations and betrayals.  I also know that he felt these, and I’m sure more acutely than I have ever felt any of them.  I have not been betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, or tempted by the Devil standing visibly before me, or felt the frustration of having such an urgent message as salvation to convey, yet being misunderstood by everyone.  I find peace that Jesus, who intercedes on my behalf, knows this feeling of hurt and frustration and, even, abandonment. 

I find it comforting too, that when Jesus appears in my own light sufferings, he leads me through this psalm.  Through a place of abandonment and fear.  But then, he leads me to a place of prayer and remembrance.  And from prayer and remembrance comes hope: for God has led many through this wilderness before, and the way is familiar.  

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