Psalm 150

Praise the Lord!

Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heaven!
Praise him for his mighty works;
praise his unequaled greatness!
Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn;
praise him with the lyre and harp!
Praise him with the tambourine and dancing;
praise him with strings and flutes!
Praise him with a clash of cymbals;
praise him with loud clanging cymbals.
Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord!

Praise the Lord!
-Psalm 150:1-6


I (mostly) read through the Psalms once again.
It has been an insane summer and fall.

I feel different and think I am no longer the same person I was at the start of summer. For better or for worse it has been a period of time...seconds, minutes, hours, days...just flowing and pulling at me...demanding change.

I really, really, really do not feel like praising right now.
Praising you in the pain is hard.
Even though I may be healing...pain is everywhere it seems.

I can breathe.
I do not really know what else to do...except smile and laugh through the anguish as the best I can.

You are good.
Even when I don't want to admit it.
Even when I am just laying here hurting so much.
I don't have sufficient words.

Life, life, life, life...

What more can I say or do?
I feel so distant and close at the same time.
I have missed so much class that I can barely believe tomorrow is October.

Another three months and it'll be Christmas...another six or seven months and I'll be done with school here.

I want to love you, even though I feel like I keep loosing my path with every step I take...but here I am, still alive.

Every choice, every decision, every time you have rescued me has brought me closer on this path...closer to you...closer to how things can or may be...good and evil, life and death, love and loss...everything is spinning and falling further out of sync as sin continues to mangle and deteriorate everything.

And yet...this is for the good?
I don't know how...I just know that it is truth, something I can't deny because it has engulfed me and turned me inside and out...making me have love and compassion where there was nothing but a desert of apathy.

I'm afraid I am becoming a darker, much more cynical and apathetic monster because of the pain...the sin of life...yet you break this heart of stone every time I try to push you out.

I think that alone is worth praising.
I have nothing to offer you except my wicked heart.
It is a gift, an offering far too small.
Yet, you will have me?
Messiah born in Bethlehem,
You have seen my words, my deeds and actions;
paltry things
always the bare minimum
while I beg you
to feed my hunger
and lusts of my heart.

You see the mercenary
the bastard I try to be
and You refuse
to let me
simply fall apart
and fade into the shadows.

A Cosmic Meddler
But the one calling me
breaking me
and pouring life
into my soul.

You have surveyed the desolation
and the ever spreading wasteland
that my soul
makes itself to be
just to hide from love
and flee from maturity.

Would any one of us,
any single one of us
have agreed to this
given a choice?
Were the fallen angels
found wanting
because they saw the horror
and gave into despair?

I hunger and thirst
but not for righteousness
as much as my own way.
The means and paths I walk,
while pretending to be.

Again, again and again...
When will the cycle stop?
Will this be the now and then
forever and forever?

I just...want to find peace.
Rest in you.
Find love in you.