I’ve been told multiple times in grief that praying the Psalms helps. They give words to every human experience. Did you know that over 1/3 of the Psalms are laments? I didn’t. I must admit, I didn’t know what “praying the Psalms” would look like. It sounded too Christian-ese, too much the “right thing to do”. Sometimes I have a problem trying to be so original, so unique, so unlike others that I don’t want to do what someone tells me to do. It’s a trait of those with my Enneagram number: The Four. We believe we are different from anyone else. However, one of the things Fours need to remember is that every human being is also unique, and we are just as human as the next person.

This week I decided to open up Psalms. I had already started writing a song based on some laments in Scripture, since there seems to be an abundant amount of songs of praise but not nearly enough songs of lament in our church culture. Psalm 77 and Psalm 6 is where I landed. And two minutes in, I was sobbing and incredibly thankful for these honest, brave, real, strong lamenters.

Two and a half months in, the pain is real and the struggle is real. I’ve been single parenting for the last ten days while my husband is out of the country. With lots of help, of course. What this has given me, among other things, is time alone at night. The days have been full, even though we’ve scaled things down to match my reduced capacity. I’ve found moments of laughter, breaks in the ache of grief. Then every night, without fail, as soon as the kids were in bed and I was alone, the tears started flowing. It was as if my companion (we’ll call her Grief) was waiting for me to be alone, tiptoed up to me and said gently, “It’s my turn now.” Every night I hoped she would not call, but she has. She still walks with me every day. I suppose that is growth in me, that I am no longer resisting her presence, even though I’m not throwing her a welcome party. She has things to do in my life, and I know I need her. Yet the continual ache and ongoing pain, sometimes so sharp all I can do is sob, feels like more than I can bear. As C.S. Lewis said in A Grief Observed, I need a drug for the pain. I suppose this is where addictions begin: to sugar, alcohol, drugs, TV social media, porn, relationships, sex, you name it. Anything to help the pain, anything for some relief.

It’s tempting to reach for those things. Very tempting. So as I’m reading the Psalms from this perspective of the amputation of my mom from my life, I found fellow sufferers in these pages. I found confirmation, yet again, that these feelings of anguish and experiences of them are not sinful or signs of weak faith, but human responses. Here are some examples.

“My soul refuses to be comforted” (Psalm 77:2).

This is so true. While I have moments of comfort, nothing actually brings lasting comfort. Nothing “works”. Temporary comforts come in many forms, but the pain comes back without fail. I live with a heart that feels like it bleeds out continuously. So unless I am willing to dive into an addiction of a good thing in order to keep numbing myself (which is always tempting, but which I am also not willing to do), I must agree with this Psalmist and say along with him, “My soul refuses to be comforted.”

“Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled” (Psalm 6:2).

My flesh is literally weak. I stared death in the face, watched it take away my youthful, active mom, and was reminded of how fleeting health and life is. On top of that, my body is weak. If I don’t take a walk a day, I feel panicky and the stress weighs much too heavily to bear. I cannot keep up with my text messages like I used to. I need more sleep. The brain fog continues. It took me five days to recover from one church picnic last Sunday afternoon. My kids are learning their new mom can’t do what she used to. Energy is low. My immune system is suppressed, and I’m in contact with my doctors to deal with health issues that have come up. When I spoke with another bereaved caregiver recently, she reminded me that it took her months for her body to realize that there wasn’t something urgent or pressing to do. I immediately related. I lived that way for six months, and I still live with this sense of urgency, of crisis, even though nothing in my life is currently on fire. My flesh is weak. So I join the psalmist in crying out to God with my troubled bones.

“I am weary with my moaning, every night I flood my bed with tears” (Psalm 6:6).

Yep. That’s me, too. The last ten days, Grief tended to wait until the kids were in bed and I was alone. She’s not always that considerate. The bathroom stall at the zoo, Sunday mornings in church service, on my walks, taking out the garbage, in a conversation, smelling a rose, hugging my child. These are all moments & places when I’ve felt the tug of grief, saying, “It’s time to mourn again”. So I cry. The tears flow. Tasks can keep the pain at bay for awhile, but they cannot remove the pain. There is nothing else to do sometimes but weep. And yes, it is wearying.

As these Psalms have helped me grieve this loss, know that I am not alone, crazy or sinful for feeling this way, they have also brought comfort. When I read Psalm 6:8-9, a new kind of tears came. These were tears of being heard, of being known, of being in someone’s heart and presence in a way where you know they are with you, they are feeling it with you, they are holding you together while you fall apart, they are strong while you are weak, yet unafraid to break with you.

“Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
    for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my plea;
    the Lord accepts my prayer.”

The Lord has heard me. That made all the difference to me. You know that experience when you’re a child, and you KNOW you are right about something, but you need your authority figure to agree to make it official? You need a witness? You need confirmation? This is my confirmation from God my Father. He has heard every instance of weeping. He was in the zoo bathroom stall with me while I fell apart. He tunes in to every ache. He’s there. He is listening, he is with me, and he is answering. I don’t know a greater comfort in the pain than this. My true comfort is coming when my King shows up on a white horse to finish what he started. I know the aching continues until then. And so does his presence with me through every moment. This is a sure footing that helps me more than sex, food, relationships, another TV show, reading……you name it.

I am a humbled Four who learned that I need the Psalms just like everyone else. Thank you, God.