My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
My Pawpaw died at the end of this past March. It was both sudden and expected at the same time. His health had been declining for a while, but the time came abruptly with little warning.
Quite a few things changed as a result of Pawpaw’s passing. One result being that my Mama and my aunt would have to share the responsibility of being Mamaw’s caretaker. She’s had Alzheimer’s disease for many years. Although she’d done remarkably well, she’s made it to the point where she can’t be left alone and needs help remembering medication and appointments.
Now she goes back and forth between my parents’ house and my aunt’s house. But here’s the catch. My parents are already taking care of my Granny, who lives with them full-time. And for a few months, this meant that for the first time in my life, there wasn’t a room for me at my parents’ house.
Confronting My Own Mess
Typing it out, it seems like a small, silly thing. I fully understood that this was a necessary change and not one that was meant to slight me or make me feel unwanted. But the reality of not having a place for a while still hurt.
I kept it to myself until it broke free during a cathartic talk with my Daddy in the living room. I poured out how I felt. How I knew it was both temporary and necessary. How I knew it wasn’t actually a rejection of me. But also how it hurt to feel like I no longer had a place in the family anymore.
The tears and hiccups and runny nose were messy for sure. But I was also in a messy place. A self-focused, imperfect, messy place. It wasn’t pretty or presentable. Not the type of thing you let just anyone see. But I was with my Daddy.
What Safe Relationships Teach Us About Intimacy with God
He listened quietly with the most solemn, understanding smile. And when I had finished my blubbering, he didn’t tell me I should be ashamed or that I was being selfish or unfair. He thanked me for telling him.
I’m very grateful to have such a kind and understanding Daddy. That conversation was one that I couldn’t have had with most people. It revealed too much of my own messiness. I needed someone I had a close relationship with to vent those feelings.
What’s wonderful about this psalm is that we get a shining example of bringing that messiness we all have below the surface directly to God. That can be rather intimidating. He is Almighty God, after all. But oh, how good it is to know that the messiness will never be more than He can handle.
Psalm 42: A Biblical Model for Bringing Your Mess to God
This psalm is about as messy as it gets. It flip-flops between the psalmist’s despair and feelings of being abandoned by God, and the psalmist declaring his decision to continue to hope in God despite his pain.
And he hid none of this from God.
In fact, the psalmist directly addresses God, laying his despair out on the table. Just like I knew I could trust my Daddy with my messiness, the psalmist knew he could trust God with his. God was a safe place for him. A place where he could lay it all out on the table, no holds barred.
Building Intimacy with God Through Honest Prayer
That’s a level of intimacy with God that I want to have. I want to be that comfortable laying out all my messiness before the Lord, knowing that rather than condemn me, He would come close and start to heal some of the wounds I’d just shown Him.
If you want to deepen your relationship with Christ, bring Him all the messy, unpresentable parts of you. Lay it all out for Him. Tell Him exactly how you feel. Give Him free rein over the whole mess, and see what He does. I’m betting He’ll come and meet you in the middle of the mess.
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