Why So Downcast Oh My Soul

I was thinking of the song we used to sing at my church with the same title (or words anyway) as the title of my post. The last few days have seemed especially trying. My father had a bad reaction to some antibiotics, so is in awful pain from that. I had a reaction myself, so cannot use one of my medications, which means a decrease in what comfort there is...and there is still the eye issue going on that I have little hope of (whether true or imagined) getting into remission. Somehow the world seems to be thumbing its nose at me and my family and cackling gleefully as some deranged maniac might while pouring you a cup of poison. 

2You are God my stronghold.

Why have you rejected me?

Why must I go about mourning,

oppressed by the enemy?

3Send me your light and your faithful care,

let them lead me;

let them bring me to your holy mountain,

to the place where you dwell.

4Then I will go to the altar of God,

to God, my joy and my delight.

I will praise you with the lyre,

O God, my God.

5Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God.

Psalm 43 NIV 

Yet even so, still I feel God with me, comforting me as only He can. So much of our life cannot be touched and soothed but through the touch of God. Our fevered minds, bleeding hearts and crushed spirits cry throughout the day and the night with the groaning of the earth beneath our feet echoing the stress of a cursed creation. Only the presence of a loving God can make such a life bearable. Thinking of all the pitfalls we humans find to try and soothe that pain of brokenness--drugs, people, sex, things--and how that often leaves us feeling even more shattered than before makes me especially glad that, by the strength of God, I have clung to God. An ironic picture perhaps, but when the going gets incredibly difficult, it seems a momentous effort to reach and hold God. With the harder the effort, the stronger the hold, so asking God for help in holding on seems to be a good answer. 

I have been making more of an effort to study lately, setting the goal of writing through John for my readers, wherever they might be, which has thus made the last few days of difficulties with less of a feeling of abandonment. I do not feel alone in the battle, I do not feel forgotten, distressed beyond strength, nor shattered of hope. I do not feel as low as I had been feeling.

Leaning on God is the only way to survive the things in life, great and small, and know that at all times you are never ever alone. We are never forgotten or forsaken. Learning more and more about God makes Him bigger and bigger all the time, more mind-blowing in the depth of His love, the depth of His wisdom and His strength, His character. The more you learn about God, the less the world and its cares bother, regardless of what they are. I am not saying that cares will not weigh heavy, but instead: 

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matt 11.28-30.

A burden is much easier when carried by two, and with the Spirit with us, we are never carrying a burden alone. And isn't it funny how the modern world tells us every day that we ought to make special time to "rest and relax", and here the Word says He will give us the rest we truly need: spiritual as well as physical.