I fell in love with the Psalms during a very difficult time in our marriage… but that part of the story is for a
different day!
When I look back on
that period of our lives, I realize that the Psalms allowed me to pray by giving me language to express myself when I
couldn’t come up with words to describe how I really felt.
It still awes me
that, as the Psalms emphasize, King David loved and praised God, “with his
whole being.” And when he fell into sin, David repented—and received not only
pardon from God, but also the promise of an everlasting kingdom.
Statue of David in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome
I continue to learn
from King David about the fundamental elements of an intimate relationship with
God. He prayed daily. He sang God’s praise. He asked God for help. He repented
and returned to God. And he thanked God regularly for his abundant
blessings.
Many of the Psalms
are songs of thanksgiving, and perhaps we don’t consider the words “thank you”
a prayer. Yet as Meister Eckhart once said,
"If the only prayer you ever say is 'Thank you,' it will be enough."
Ah, the Psalms. When I was far from church, someone told me how he read the Bible every morning and I was quite intrigued by this. I went out and bought myself a bible, I was probably about 29 or 30, and raised as a Catholic at a time when reading the Bible was not part of our lives in the same way that it is today. So I got a King James version and found it largely unreadable.
ReplyDeleteExcept for the Psalms. And those I read over and over and over.
For that and for all, I do utter that one prayer - thank you.
Once again, we are one on our pilgrimage walk, Fran! Thanks again for praying with me, for walking with me, and for sharing yourself with me here! Love to you from Oklahoma :-)
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