God Visits Me In Deep Emotional Pain

"I cried out to God with my voice-to God with my voice; and He gave ear to me.  In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; my soul refused to be comforted.  I remembered God, and was troubled; I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.  I have remembered that days of old, the years of ancient times.  I call to remembrance my songs in the night; I meditate within my heart, and my spirit makes diligent search.  Will the Lord cast off forever?  And be favorable no more?  Has His mercy ceased forever?  Has His promise failed forevermore?  Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in His anger shut up His tender mercies."  Psalms 77:1-7

The Poet-Sufferer is experiencing deep emotional pain.  He does not reveal what he believes to be the source or cause of his pain.  Indeed, he is not a western individual conversant with a particular school of psychotherapy.  He is nevertheless an individual who knows God and yet he finds himself within severe emotional suffering.  He admits in verse one that he prayed to God and God listened to him.

There is a pathetic brokenness in his words.  His emotional pain seems to drown out any verbal expression of his circumstances.  There is a frantic appeal to God by the Poet-sufferer to grant relief to the stabbing and unrelenting emotional pain that has claimed his life. He sought the Lord "in the night" of his soul's anguish.  He states that he "stretched out his hand" for relief from the deep struggle being waged within his heart, and yet it was not available to him.

In the midst of his trail of faith he remembered God, and was troubled.  Ah, there was no smooth linear answer for the Poet's suffering.  There was no attempt to construct a reasonable answer for what he was experiencing.  A 'logical' reason for his pain could not be constructed in the storm of his suffering.

Job experienced a similar type of emotional pain that had no reasonable explanation.  He was a godly one whose suffering was not rational, and yet he too cried out to God for an answer to his situation.  When we experience unspeakable suffering it is normal to want to know 'why?' we have been visited with such an event, and when its intense pain will leave us.

I have seen this struggle with pain and faith in my on life.  It has caused me to seek to get closer to God not expecting an answer from Him about why my life has been visited by emotional pain, but that I may have a place of refuge during the storm of distress.  Yes, I question within 'why?' a certain event has come to me, and I have learned to pray for stability during the present crisis.

However, I know that there are those whose emotional pain have been deeply written into their souls through frightful trauma.  Rape, childhood sexual abuse, victims of human trafficking, domestic violence, babies born with addictions to street drugs, etc., all have a story of emotional pain that defies the most carefully constructed studies and statistical variables because who can measure the depths of malignant anguish?

I have seen the tattoos on the wrists of those who were cataloged and sequestered in work camps, and I have heard first person some of their stories.  The pain in their hearts refused to negotiate release.  I have heard first person the stories of those who were sexually abused as children, and how their pain from the past wants to control them in the present.

The Poet-sufferer is a companion to those who have trodden the path of emotional pain so deep that one can only find oneself complaining to God.  There was a point in the Poet's suffering where he he could no longer speak.  His vocal chords were raw from strain, and his heart was weary from the endless molestation of writhing pain.

Where was God when the Poet's life did not make sense?  Of what value was there in the Poet's suffering? The Poet's pain had made him shadowy and almost ghost like.  He was on the edge of normative reality.  His unique trouble brought him to the point where he could only do one thing.  His raw exposure to emotional pain led him to the frontier of faith.

The Poet was caused to remember a song in the night.  Here was the mercy of God in the midst of trail. God gave the Poet a song to sustain him in the face of trial.  When I can no longer bear the heavy load I am tasked to carry God will show himself to me.  In the hour of my deepest need He is there for me because He loves me.  

Beloved, today take your deep emotional pain to God humbly and frankly tell Him of your struggle.  Know that He will never leave you or forsake you.  Change you life today by faith in the living God who makes all things new.

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